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COLLECTED ESSAYS 

By T. H. HUXLEY 



VOLUME VII 



THOMAS H. HUXLEY'S WORKS. 

Collected Essays, izmo, cloth, $1.25 per volume. 
Vol. I. Method and Results. 
" 2. Darwiniana. 
" 3. Science and Education. 
" 4. Science and Hebrew Tradition. 
" 5. Science and Christian Tradition. 
" 6. Hume. 

" 7. Man's Place in Nature. 
" 8. Discourses, Biological and Geological. 
" 9. Evolution and Ethics, and Other 
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D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, NEW YORK. 



MAN'S PLACE IN NATURE 



AND OTHER 

ANTHROPOLOGICAL ESSAYS 



BY 

THOMAS H. HUXLEY 



NEW YORK 
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 
1902 



*- ^ t / 1L— 



'// 



.Ha 



Authorized Edition, 

5~/JL0 



c t c 



.• > : *. 



PREFACE. 



I AM very well aware that the old are prone to 
regard their early performances with much more 
interest than their contemporaries of a younger 
generation are likely to take in them; moreover, 
I freely admit that my younger contemporaries 
might employ their time better than in perusing 
the three essays, written thirty-two years ago, 
which occupy the first place in this volume. This 
confession is the more needful, inasmuch as all the 
premises of the argument set forth in " Man's 
Place in Nature " and most of the conclusions de- 
duced from them, are now to be met with among 
other well-established and, indeed, elementary 
truths, in the text-books. 

Paradoxical as the statement may seem, how- 
ever, it is just because every well-informed student 
of biology ought to be tempted to throw these 
essays, and especially the second, " On the Eola- 
tions of Man to the Lower Animals,'^ aside, as a 
fair mathematician might dispense with the re- 
perusal of Cocker's arithmetic, that I think it 



Vi PREFACE. 

worth while to reprint them; and entertain the 
hope that the story of their origin and early fate 
may not be devoid of a certain antiquarian inter- 
est, even if it possess no other. 

In 1854, it became my dnty to teach the prin- 
ciples of biological science with especial reference 
to paleontology. The first result of addressing 
myself to the business I had taken in hand, was 
the discovery of my own lamentable ignorance in 
respect of many parts of the vast field of knowl- 
edge through which I had undertaken to guide 
others. The second result was a resolution to 
amend this state of things to the best of my 
ability; to which end, I surveyed the ground; 
and having made out what were the main posi- 
tions to be captured, T came to the conclusion that 
I must try to carry them by concentrating all the 
energy I possessed upon each in turn. So I set 
to work to know something of my own knowledge 
of all the various disciplines included under the 
head of Biology; and to acquaint myself, at first 
hand, with the evidence for and against the extant 
solutions of the greater problems of that science. 
I have reason to believe that wise heads were 
shaken over my apparent divagations — now into 
the province of Physiology or Histology, now into 
that of Comparative Anatomy, of Development, of 
Zoology, of Paleontology, or of Ethnology. But 
even at this time, when I am, or ought to be, so 
much wiser, I really do not see that I could have 



PREFACE. Vii 

done better. And my method had this great ad- 
vantage; it involved the certainty that somebody 
would profit by my effort to teach properly. What- 
ever my hearers might do, I myself always learned 
something by lecturing. And to those who have 
experience of what a heart-breaking business teach- 
ing is — ^how much the can't-learns and won't- 
learns and don't-learns predominate over the do- 
learns — ^will understand the comfort of that re- 
flection. 

Among the many problems which came under 
my consideration, the position of the human species 
in zoological classification was one of the most 
serious. Indeed, at that time, it was a burning 
question in the sense that those who touched it 
were almost certain to burn their fingers severely. 
It was not so very long since my kind friend Sir 
William Lawrence, one of the ablest men whom 
I have known, had been well-nigh ostracized for 
his book " On Man,'' which now might be read 
in a Sunday-school without surprising anybody; it 
was only a few years, since the electors to the chair 
of Natural History in a famous northern univer- 
sity had refused to invite a very distinguished man 
to occupy it because he advocated the doctrine of 
the diversity of species of mankind, or what was 
called " polygeny." Even among those who con- 
sidered man from the point of view, not of vulgar 
prejudice, but of science, opinions lay poles asun^ 
der. Linnaeus had taken one view, Cuvier another; 



viii PEEFACE. 

and, among my senior contemporaries, men like 
Lyell, regarded by many as revolutionaries of the 
deepest dye, were strongly opposed to anything 
which tended to break down the barrier between 
man and the rest of the animal world. 

My own mind was by no means definitely made 
np abont this matter when, in the year 1857, a 
paper was read before the Linnsean Society " On 
the Characters, Principles of Division and Primary 
Groups of the Class Mammalia,^^ in which certain 
anatomical features of the brain were said to be 
^^ peculiar to the genus Homo,^^ and were made 
the chief ground for separating that genus from all 
other mammals, and placing him in a division, 
" Archencephala,^^ apart from, and superior to, all 
the rest. As these statements did not agree with 
the opinions I had formed, I set to work to rein- 
vestigate the subject; and soon satisfied myself 
that the structures in question were not peculiar to 
Man, but were shared by him with all the higher 
and many of the lower apes. I embarked in no 
public discussion of these matters; but my atten- 
tion being thus drawn to them, I studied the whole 
question of the structural relations of Man to the 
next lower existing forms, with much care. And, 
of course, I embodied my conclusions in my teach- 
ing. 

Matters were at this point, when " The Origin 
of Species" appeared. The weighty sentence 
" Light will be thrown on the origin of man and 



PREFACE. 



IX 



his history '^ (1st ed. p. 488) was not only in full 
harmony with the conclusions at which I had ar- 
rived, respecting the structural relations of apes 
and men, but was strongly supported by them. 
And inasmuch as Development and Vertebrate 
Anatomy were not among Mr. Darwin^s many spe- 
cialities, it appeared to me that I should not be 
intruding on the ground he had made his own, if 
I discussed this part of the general question. In 
fact, I thought that I might probably serve the 
cause of evolution by doing so. 

Some experience of popular lecturing had 
convinced me that the necessity of making things 
plain to uninstructed people, was one of the very 
best means of clearing up the obscure corners in 
one^s own mind. So, in 1860, I took the Relation 
of Man to the Lower Animals, for the subject of 
the six lectures to working men which it was my 
duty to deliver. It was also in 1860, that this 
topic was discussed before a jury of experts, at 
the meeting of the British Association at Oxford; 
and, from that time, a sort of running fight on the 
same subject was carried on, until it culminated 
at the Cambridge meeting of the Association in 
1863, by my friend Sir W. Flower's public demon- 
stration of the existence in the apes of those cere- 
bral characters which had been said to be peculiar 
to man. 

^^ Magna est Veritas et praevalebit! " Truth is 
great, certainly, but, considering her greatness, it is 



X • PREFACE. 

curious what a long time she is apt to take about 
prevailing. When, towards the end of 1862, I 
had finished writing "Man's Place in Nature/' 
I could say with a good conscience, that my con- 
clusions "had not been formed hastily or enun- 
ciated crudely." I thought I had earned the right 
to. publish them and even fancied I might be 
thanked, rather than reproved, for so doing. How- 
ever, in my anxiety to promulgate nothing errone- 
ous, I asked a highly competent anatomist and very 
good friend of mine to look through my proofs and, 
if he could, point out any errors of fact. I was 
well pleased when he returned them without criti- 
cism on that score; but my satisfaction was speedily 
dashed by the very earnest warning, as to the con- 
sequences of publication, which my friend's inter- 
est in my welfare led him to give. But as I have 
confessed elsewhere, when I was a young man, 
there was just a little — a mere soupgon — in my 
composition of that tenacity of purpose which has 
another name; and I felt sure that all the evil 
things prophesied would not be so painful to me 
as the giving up that which I had resolved to do, 
upon grounds which I conceived to be right. So 
the book came out; and I must do my friend the 
justice to say that his forecast was completely 
justified. The Boreas of criticism blew his hard- 
est blasts of misrepresentation and ridicule for 
some years; and I was even as one of the wicked. 
Indeed, it surprises me, at times, to think how any 



PEEFACE. xi 

one who had sunk so low could since have emerged 
into, at any rate, relative respectability. Person- 
ally, like the non-corvine personages in the In- 
goldsby legend, I did not feel " one penny the 
worse /^ Translated into several languages, the 
book reached a wider public than I had ever hoped 
for; being largely helped, I imagine, by the Ernul- 
phine advertisements to which I have referred. It 
has had the honour of being freely utilized, without 
acknowledgment, by writers of repute; and, finally, 
it achieved the fate, which is the euthanasia of a 
scientific work, of being inclosed among the rubble 
of the foundations of later knowledge and for- 
gotten. 

To my observation, human nature has not sen- 
sibly changed during • the last thirty years. I 
doubt not that there are truths as plainly obvious 
and as generally denied, as those contained in 
" Man's Place in Nature," now awaiting enuncia- 
tion. If there is a young man of the present gen- 
eration, who has taken as much trouble as I did 
to assure himself that they are truths, let him 
come out with them, without troubling his head 
about the barking of the dogs of St. Ernulphus. 
^' Veritas pr?evalebit " — some day; and, even if she 
does not prevail in his time, he himself will be all 
the better and the wiser for having tried to help 
her. And let him recollect that such great reward 
is full payment for all his labour and pains. 

" Man's Place in Nature," perhaps, may still be 



xii PREFACE. 

useful as an introdTiction to the subject; but^ as any 
interest which attaches to it must be mainly his- 
torical^ I have thought it right to leave the essays 
untouched. The history of the long controversy 
about the structure of the brain, following upon 
the second dissertation, in the original edition, 
however^ is omitted. The verdict of science has 
long been pronounced upon the questions at issue; 
and no good purpose can be served by preserving 
the memory of the details of the suit. 

In many passages, the reader who is acquainted 
with the present state of science, will observe much 
room for addition; but, in all cases, the supple- 
ments required, are, I believe, either indifferent to 
the argument or would strengthen it. 



CONTENTS 



PAGE 
ON THE NATURAL HISTORY OF THE MAN-LIKE APES . . 1 



II 

ON THE RELATIONS OF MAN TO THE LOWER ANIMALS . 77 

III 
ON SOME FOSSIL REMAINS OF MAN 157 

IV 

ON THE METHODS AND RESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY [1865] . 210 

V 

ON SOME FIXED POINTS IN BRITISH ETHNOLOGY [1871]. 254 

VI 
ON THE ARYAN QUESTION [1890] 273 

%* The first three Essays were published in January, 1863, 
under the title of " Man's Place in Nature " ; the fourth Essay 
appeared in the Fortnightly Review, the fifth in the Con- 
temporary Review, and they were published in Critiques and 
Addresses. The Essay on the Aryan Question appeared in 
the Nineteenth Century for November, 1890. 

xiii 



MAN'S PLACE m NATURE. 
Advertisement to the Reader. 

The greater part of the substance of the fol- 
lowing Essays has already been published in the 
form of Oral Discourses^, addressed to widely dif- 
ferent audiences during the past three years. 

Upon the subject of the second Essay, I de- 
livered six Lectures to the Working Men in 1860, 
and two, to the members of the Philosophical In- 
stitution of Edinburgh in 1862. The readiness 
with which my audience followed my arguments, 
on these occasions, encourages me to hope that I 
have not committed the error, into which working 
men of science so readily fall, of obscuring my 
meaning by unnecessary technicalities: while, the 
length of the period during which the subject, 
under its various aspects, has been present to my 
mind, may suffice to satisfy the Reader that, my 
conclusions, be they right or be they wrong, have 
not been formed hastily or enunciated crudely. 

T. H. H. 
London : January, 1863. 

XV 



r 



ON" THE N"ATUEAL HISTORY OF THE 
MAN-LIKE APES. 

Ancient traditions, when tested by the severe 
processes of modem investigation, commonly 
enough fade away into mere dreams: but it is sin- 
gular how often the dream turns out to have been 
a half -waking one, presaging a reality. Ovid fore- 
shadowed the discoveries of the geologist: the At- 
lantis was an imagination, but Columbus found a 
western world: and though the quaint forms of 
Centaurs and Satyrs have an existence only in the 
realms of art, creatures approaching man more 
nearly than they in essential structure, and yet as 
thoroughly brutal as the goat's or horse's half of 
the mythical compound, are now not only known, 
but notorious. 

I have not met with any notice of one of these 
Man-like Apes of earlier date than that con- 
tained in Pigafetta's "Description of the king- 
165 1 



THE MAN-LIKE APES. 



dom of Congo," * drawn up from the notes of a 
Portuguese sailor, Eduardo Lopez, and published 
in 1598. The tenth chapter of this work is en- 
titled " De Animalibus quae in hac provineia re- 




FiG. 1. — SimisB magnatum delicise. — De Bry, 1598. 

periuntur/' and contains a brief passage to the 
effect that " in the Songan country, on the banks 
of the Zaire, there are multitudes of apes, which 
afford great delight to the nobles by imitating 

* Regnum Congo: hoc est Vera Descriptio Regni 
Africani quod tam ab incolis quam Lusitanis Con- 
gus appellatur, per Pliilippum Pigafettam, olim ex 
Edoardo Lopez aeroamatis lingua Italiea excerpta, num 
Latio sermone donata ab August. Cassiod. Eeinio. Iconi- 
bus et imaginibus rerum memorabilium quasi vivis, opera 
et industria Joan. Theodori et Joan, Israelis de Bry, fra- 
tnim exornata. Francofurti, mdxcviii. 



I THE PONGO AND ENGECO. 3 

human gestures." As this might apply to almost 
any kind of apes, I should have thought little of 
it, had not the brothers De Bry, whose engravings 
illustrate the work, thought fit, in their eleventh 
" Argumentum," to figure two of these " Simiae 
magnatum delicise." So much of the plate as 
contains these apes is faithfully copied in the 
woodcut (Fig. 1), and it will be observed that they 
are tail-less, long-armed, and large-eared; and about 
the size of Chimpanzees. It may be that these apes 
are as much figments of the imagination of the in- 
genious brothers as the winged, two-legged, croco- 
dile-headed dragon which adorns the same plate; 
or, on the other hand, it may be that the artists 
have constructed their drawings from some essen- 
tially faithful description of a Gorilla or a Chim- 
panzee. And, in either case, though these fig- 
ures are worth a passing notice, the oldest trust- 
worthy and definite accounts of any animal of this 
kind date from the 17th century, and are due to an 
Englishman. 

The first edition of that most amusing old 
book, " Purchas his Pilgrimage," was published 
in 1613, and therein are to be found many refer- 
ences to the statements of one whom Purchas terms 
" Andrew Battell (my neere neighbour, dwelling 
at Leigh in Essex) who served under Manuel Sil- 
vera Perera, Governor under the King of Spaine, 
at his city of Saint Paul, and with him went farre 
into the countrey of Angola"; and again, "my 



4 THE MAN-LIKE APES. i 

friend, Andrew Battle, who lived in the kingdom 
of Congo many yeares," and who, " npon some 
qnarell betwixt the Portngals (among whom he was 
a sergeant of a band) and him, lived eight or nine 
moneths in the woodes." From this weather- 
beaten old soldier, Purchas was amazed to hear " of 
a kinde of Great Apes, if they might so be termed, 
of the height of a man, but twice as bigge in fea- 
ture of their limmes, with strength proportion- 
able, hairie all over^ otherwise altogether like men 
and women in their whole bodily shape.* They 
lived on such wilde fruits as the trees and woods 
yielded, and in the night time lodged on the trees." 
This extract is, however, less detailed and clear 
in its statements than a passage in the third 
chapter of the second part of another work — 
" Purchas his Pilgrimes," published in 1625, by 
the same author — which has been often, though 
hardly ever quite rightly, cited. The chapter is 
entitled, " The strange adventures of Andrew 
Battell, of Leigh in Essex, sent by the Portugals 
prisoner to Angola, who lived there and in the 
adioining regions neere eighteene yeeres." And 
the sixth section of this chapter is headed — " Of 
the Provinces of Bongo, Calongo, Mayombe, Mani- 
kesocke, Motimbas: of the Ape Monster Pongo, 
their hunting: Idolatries; and divers other obser- 
vations." 

* "Except this that their legges had no calves." — [Ed. 
1626.] And in a marginal note, " These great apes are 
called Pongo's." 



I THE PONGO. 5 

" This province (Calongo) toward the east bordereth 
upon Bongo, and toward the north upon Mayombe, which 
is nineteen leagues from Longo along the coast. 

" This province of Mayombe is all woods and groves, 
so overgrowne that a man may travaile twentie days in 
the shadow without any sunne or heat. Here is no kind 
of corne nor graine, so that the people liveth onely upon 
plantanes and roots of sundrie sorts, very good ; and nuts ; 
nor any kinde of tame cattell, nor hens. 

" But they have great store of elephants' flesh, which 
they greatly esteeme, and many kinds of wild beasts ; and 
great store of fish. Here is a great sandy bay, two leagues 
to the northward of Cape Negro,* which is the port of 
Mayombe. Sometimes the Portugals lade logwood in this 
bay. Here is a great river, called Banna : in the winter it 
hath no barre, because the generall winds cause a great 
sea. But when the sunne hath his south declination, then 
a boat may goe in; for then it is smooth because of the 
raine. This river is very great, and hath many ilands and 
people dwelling in them. The woods are so covered with 
baboones, monkies, apes and parrots, that it will feare any 
man to travaile in them alone. Here are also two kinds 
of monsters, which are common in these woods, and very 
dangerous. 

" The greatest of these two monsters is called Pongo 
in their language, and the lesser is called Engeco. This 
Pongo is in all proportion like a man ; but that he is more 
like a giant in stature than a man; for he is very tall, 
and hath a man's face, hollow-eyed, with long haire upon 
his browes. His face and eares are without haire, and 
his hands also. His bodie is full of haire, but not very 
thicke; and it is of a dunnish colour. 

" He difi'ereth not from a man but in his legs ; for they 
have no calfe. Hee goeth alwaies upon his legs, and car- 

* Purohas' note. — Cape Negro is in 16 degrees south of 
the line. 



6 THE MAN-LIKE APES. i 

rieth his hands clasped in the nape of his neeke when he 
goeth upon the ground. They sleepe in the trees, and 
build shelters for the raine. They feed upon fruit that 
they find in the woods, and upon nuts, for they eate no 
kind of flesh. They cannot speake, and have no under- 
standing more than a beast. The people of the countrie, 
when they travaile in the woods make fires where they 
sleepe in the night; and in the morning, when they are 
gone, the Pongoes will come and sit about the fire till it 
goeth out; for they have no understanding to lay the 
wood together. They goe many together and kill many 
negroes that travaile in the woods. Many times they fall 
upon the elephants which come to feed where they be, 
and so beate them with their clubbed fists, and pieces of 
wood, that they will runne roaring away from them. 
Those Pongoes are never taken alive because they are so 
strong, that ten men cannot hold one of them; but yet 
they take many of their young ones with poisoned ar- 
rowes. 

" The young Pongo hangeth on his mother's belly with 
his hands fast clasped about her, so that when the coun- 
trie people kill any of the females they take the young 
one, which hangeth fast upon his mother. 

" When they die among themselves, they cover the 
dead with great heaps of boughs and wood, which is com- 
monly found in the forest." * 

* PurcMs' marginal note, p. 982: — "The Pongo is a 
giant ape. He told me in conference with him, that one 
of these Pongoes tooke a negro boy of his v^hich lived a 
moneth with them. For they hurt not those which they 
surprise at unawares, except they look on them; which 
he avoyded. He said their highth was like a man's but 
their bignesse twice as great. I saw the negro boy. What 
the other monster should be he hath forgotten to relate; 
and these papers came to my hand since his death, which, 
otherwise, in my often conferences, I might have learned. 
Perhaps he meaneth the Pigmy Pongo killers mentioned." 



I THE PONGO. 7 

It does not appear difficult to identify the exact 
region of which Battell speaks. Longo is doubt- 
less the name of the place usually spelled Loango 
on our maps. Mayombe still lies some nineteen 
leagues northward from Loango, along the coast; 
and Cilongo or Kilonga, Manikesocke, and Motim- 
bas are yet registered by geographers. The Cape 
Negro of Battell, however, cannot be the modern 
Cape Negro in 16° S., since Loango itself is in 
4° S. latitude. On the other hand, the " great 
river called Banna " corresponds very well with the 
" Camma " and " Fernand Yas," of modern geog- 
raphers, which form a great delta on this part of 
the African coast. 

Now this " Camma " country is situated about 
a degree and a half south of the Equator, while a 
few miles to the north of the line lies the Gaboon, 
and a degree or so north of that, the Money Eiver 
— both well known to modern naturalists as lo- 
calities where the largest of man-like Apes has 
been obtained. Moreover, at the present day, the 
word Engeco, or N'schego, is applied by the na- 
tives of these regions to the smaller of the two 
great Apes which inhabit them; so that there can 
be no rational doubt that Andrew Battell spoke 
of that which he knew of his own knowledge, or, 
at any rate, by immediate report from the natives 
of Western Africa. The "Engeco,^' however, is 
that " other monster ^' whose nature Battell " for- 
got to relate," while the name " Pongo " — applied 



S , THE MAN-LIKE APES. i 

to the animals whose characters and habits are so 
fully and carefully described — seems to have died 
out, at least in its primitive form and signification. 
Indeed, there is evidence that not only in BattelFs 
time, but up to a very recent date, it was used in 
a totally different sense from that in which he em- 
ploys it. 

For example, the second chapter of Purchas' 
work, which I have just quoted, contains " A De- 
scription and Historicall Declaration of the Golden 
Kingdom of Guinea, &c. &c. Translated from the 
Dutch, and compared also with the Latin,^^ where- 
in it is stated (p. 986) that — 

"The Eiver Gaboon lyeth about fifteen miles north- 
ward from Eio de Angra, and eight miles northward from 
Cape de Lope Gonsalvez (Cape Lopez), and is right under 
the Equinoctial line, about fifteene miles from St. Thomas, 
and is a great land, well and easily to be knowne. At 
the mouth of the river there lieth a sand, three or foure 
fathoms deepe, whereon it beateth mightily with the 
streame which runneth out of the river into the sea. This 
river, in the mouth thereof, is at least four miles broad; 
but when you are about the Hand called Pongo, it is not 
above two miles broad. ... On both sides the river there 

standeth many trees The Hand called Pongo, 

which hath a monstrous high hill." 

The French naval officers, whose letters are ap- 
pended to the late M. Isidore Geoff. Saint Hilaire's 
excellent essay on the Gorilla,* note in similar 
terms the width of the Gaboon, the trees that line 

* Archives du Museum, Tome X. 



I THE PONGO. 9 

its banks down to the water's edge, and the strong 
current that sets out of it. They describe two 
islands in its estuary; — one low, called Perroquet; 
the other high, presenting three conical hills, called 
Coniquet; and one of them, M. Franquet, expressly 
states that, formerly, the Chief of Coniquet was 
called Meni-Pongo, meaning thereby Lord of 
Pongo; and that the WPongues (as, in agreement 
with Dr. Savage, he affirms the natives call them- 
selves) term the estuary of the Gaboon itself 
WPongo. 

It is so easy, in dealing with savages, to mis- 
understand their applications of words to things, 
that one is at first inclined to suspect Battell of 
having confounded the name of this region, where 
his " greater monster '' still abounds, with the 
name of the animal itself. But he is so right about 
other matters (including the name of the " lesser 
monster '') that one is loth to suspect the old 
traveller of error; and, on the other hand, we shall 
find that a voyager of a hundred years' later date 
speaks of the name " Boggoe," as applied to a 
great Ape, by the inhabitants of quite another 
part of Africa — Sierra Leone. 

But I must leave this question to be settled by 
philologers and travellers; and I should hardly 
have dwelt so long upon it except for the curious 
part played by this word '^ Pongo ' in the later his- 
tory of the man-like Apes. 

The generation which succeeded Battell saw 



10 THE MAN-LIKE APES. I 

the first of the man-like Apes which was ever 
brought to Europe, or, at any rate, whose visit 
found a historian. In the third book of Tulpius' 
" Observationes Medicse," published in 1641, the 
56th chapter or section is devoted to what he calls 
Satyrus indicus, " called by the Indians Orang- 

JHbmo Sylveftris. 
Qpan£i Outanff. 




Fig. 2.— The Orang of Tulpius, 1641. 

autang or Man-of-the-Woods, and by the Africans 
Quoias Morrou." He gives a very good figure, evi- 
dently from the life, of the specimen of this ani- 
mal, " nostra memoria ex Angola delatum," pre- 
sented to Frederick Henry Prince of Orange. Tul- 
pius says it was as big as a child of three years old. 



I TYSON'S PYGMIE. H 

and as stout as one of six years: and that its back 
was covered with black hair. It is plainly a young 
Chimpanzee. 

In the meanwhile, the existence of other, Asi- 
atic, man-like Apes became known, but at iirst 
in a yery mythical fashion. Thus Bontius (1658) 
gives an altogether fabulous and ridiculous ac- 
count and figure of an animal which he calls 
" Orang-outang ''; and though he says " vidi Ego 
cujus effigiem hie exhibeo,^' the said effigies (see 
Eig. 6 for Hoppius' copy of it) is nothing but a 
very hairy woman of rather comely aspect, and 
with proportions and feet wholly human. The 
judicious English anatomist, Tyson, was justified 
in saying of this description by Bontius, " I confess 
I do mistrust the whole representation." 

It is to the last-mentioned writer, and his coad- 
jutor Cowper, that we owe the first account of a 
man-like ape which has any pretensions to scien- 
tific accuracy and completeness. The treatise en- 
titled, " Orang-outang, sive Homo Sylvestris; or 
the Anatomy of a Pygmie compared with that of a 
Monkey, an Ape, and a Man,'' published by the 
Eoyal Society in 1699, is, indeed, a work of re- 
markable merit, and has, in some respects, served 
as a model to subsequent inquirers. This " Pyg- 
mie,'' Tyson tells us "was brought from Angola, in 
Africa; but was first taken a great deal higher up 
the country "; its hair " was of a coal-black colour 
and strait," and " when it went as a quadruped 



12 THE MAN-LIKE APES. i 

on all four, ^twas awkwardly; not placing the palm 
of the hand flat to the ground, but it walk'd upon 
its knuckles, as I observed it to do when weak and 
had not strength enough to support its body," — 



Fig. 3. — The " Pvgmie " reduced from Tyson's figure 1, 
1699. 

'' From the top of the head to the heel of the foot, 

in a straight line, it measured twenty-six inches." 

These characters, even without Tyson's good 

figure (Figs. 3 and 4), would have been sufficient 



I TYSON'S PYGMIE. 13 

to prove his " Pygmie " to be a young Chimpanzee. 
But the opportunity of examining the skeleton of 
the very animal Tyson anatomised having most 
unexpectedly presented itself to me, I am able to 




li-^j&i^,^^- 



Fig 4. — The "Pygmie" reduced from Tyson's figure 2, 
1699. 

bear independent testimony to its being a veri- 
table Troglodytes niger,"^ though still very young. 

* I am indebted to Dr. Wright, of Cheltenham, whose 
paleontological labours are so well known, for bringing 



14: THE MAN-LIKE APES. I 

Although fully appreciating the resemblances be- 
tween his Pygmie and Man, Tyson by no means 
overlooked the differences between the two, and 
he concludes his memoir by summing up first, the 
points in which " the Ourang-outang or Pygmie 
more resembled a Man than Apes and Monkeys 
do," under forty-seven distinct heads; and then 
giving, in thirty-four similar brief paragraphs, the 
respects in which " the Ourang-outang or Pygmie 
differM from a man and resembled more the Ape 
and Monkey kind/' 

After a careful survey of the literature of the 
subject extant in his time, our author arrives at 
the conclusion that his " Pygmie " is identical 
neither with the Orangs of Tulpius and Bontius, 
nor with the Quoias Morrou of Dapper (or rather 
of Tulpius), the Barris of d^Arcos, nor with the 
Pongo of Battell; but that it is a species of ape 
probably identical with the Pygmies of the An- 
cients, and, says Tyson, though it " does so much 
resemble a Man in many of its parts, more than 
any of the ape kind, or any other animal in the 
world, that I know of: yet by no means do I look 
upon it as the product of a mixt generation — 'tis a 

this intersetjng relic to my knowledge. Tyson's grand- 
daughter, it appears, married Dr. Allardyce, a physician 
of repute in Cheltenham, and brought, as part of her 
dowry, the skeleton of the " Pygmie." Dr. Allardyce pre- 
sented it to the Cheltenham Museum, and, through the 
good offices of my friend Dr. Wright, the authorities of 
the Museum have permitted me to borrow, what is, per- 
haps, its most remarkable ornament. 



1 THE MANDRILL. 15 

Brute-Animal sui generis, and a particular species 
of Ape." 

The name of " Chimpanzee/' by which one of 
the African Apes is now so well known, appears 
to have come into use in the first half of the 
eighteenth century, but the only important addi- 
tion made, in that period, to our acquaintance with 
the man-like apes of Africa is contained in " A 
"New Voyage to Guinea," by William Smith, which 
bears the date 1744. 

In describing the animals of Sierra Leone, p. 
51, this writer says: — 

" I shall next describe a strange sort of animal, called 
by the white men in this country Mandrill,* but why it 
is so called I know not, nor did I ever hear the name be- 
fore, neither can those who call them so tell, except it be 
for their near resemblance of a human creature, though 
nothing at all like an Ape. Their bodies, when full grown, 
are as big in circumference as a middle-sized man's — ■ 
their legs much shorter, and their feet larger; their arms 
and hands in proportion. The head is monstrously big, 
and the face broad and flat, without any other hair but 

* " Mandrill " seems to signify a " man-like ape," the 
word " Drill " or " Dril " having been anciently employed 
in England to denote an Ape or Baboon. Thus in the' 
fifth edition of Blount's " Glossographia, or a Dictionary 
interpreting the hard words of whatsoever language now 
used in our refined English tongue . . . very useful for all 
such as desire to understand what they read," published 
in 1681, I find, " Dril — a stonecutter's tool wherewith he 
bores little holes in marble, &c. Also a large overgrown 
Ape and Baboon, so called." " Drill " is used in the same 
sense in Charleston's Onomasticon Zoicon, 1668. The sin- 
gular etymology of the word given by Buff on seems hardly 
a probable one. 



16 



THE MAN-LIKE APES. 



the eyebrows; the nose very small, the mouth mde, and 
the lips thin. The face, which is covered by a white skin, 
is monstrously ugly, being all over wrinkled as with old 
age; the teeth broad and yellow; the hands have no more 
hair than the face, but the same white skin, though all 
the rest of the body is covered with long black hair, like 
a bear. They never go upon all-fours, like apes; but cry, 
when vexed or teased, just like children 




Fig. 5. 



-Facsimile of William Smith's figure of the " Man- 
drill," 1744. 



" When I was at Sherbro, one Mr. Cummerbus, whom 
I shall have occasion hereafter to mention, made me a 
present of one of these strange animals, which are called 
by the natives Boggoe: it was a she- cub, of six months' 
age, but even then larger than a Baboon. I gave it in 
charge to one of the slaves, who knew how to feed and 
nurse it, being a very tender sort of animal; but when- 
ever I went off the deck the sailors began to teaze it — 



I LINN^US ANTHROPOMORPHA. 17 

some loved to see its tears and hear it cry; others hated 
its snotty nose; one who hurt it, being checked by the 
negro that took care of it, told the slave he was very fond 
of his country-woman, and asked him if he should not 
like her for a wife? To which the slave very readily re- 
plied, ' No, this no my wife ; this a white woman — this 
fit wife for you.' This unlucky wit of the negro's, I fancy, 
hastened its death, for next morning it was found dead 
under the windlass." 

William Smith's " Mandrill/' or " Boggoe," as 
his description and figure testify, was, without 
doubt, a Chimpanzee. 

Linnaeus knew nothing, of his own observation, 
of the man-like Apes of either Africa or Asia, but 
a dissertation by his pupil Hoppius in the " Amoeni- 
tates Academicse " (VI. " Anthropomorpha ") may 
be regarded as embodying his views respecting 
these animals. 

The dissertation is illustrated by a plate, of 
which the accompanying woodcut. Fig. 6, is a re- 
duced copy. The figures are entitled (from left to 
right) 1. Troglodyta Bontii; 2. Lucifer Aldro- 
vandi; 3. Satyrus Tulpii; 4. Pygmwus Edwardi. 
The first is a bad copy of Bontius' fictitious " Ou- 
rang-outang," in whose existence, however, Lin- 
naeus appears to have fully believed; for in the 
standard edition of the " Systema Naturae," it is 
enumerated as a second species of Homo; " H. 
nocturnus." Lucifer Aldrovandi is a copy of a 
figure in Aldrovandus, "De Quadrupedibus digi- 
tatis viviparis," Lib. 2, p. 249 (1645) entitled 
166 



18 



THE MAN-LIKE APES. 



" Cercopithecus fornix rarse Barhilius vocatus et 
originem a china ducebat/^ Hoppius is of opinion 
that this may be one of that cat-tailed people, of 
whom Nicolaus Koping affirms that they eat a 
boat's crew, " gnbernator navis " and all! In the 
" Systema Naturae " Linnaeus calls it in a note 
Homo caudatus, and seems inclined to regard it 
as a third species of man. According to Tem- 




FiG. 6. — The Anthropomorpha of Linnaeus. 



minck, Satyrus Tulpii is a copy of the figure of 
a Chimpanzee published by Scotin in 1738, which 
I have not seen. It is the Satyrus indicus of the 
" Systema Naturse," and is regarded by Linnaeus 
as possibly a distinct species from Satyrus sylvestris. 
The last, named Pygmceus Edwardi, is copied from 
the figure of a young " Man of the Woods," or true 
Orang-Utan, given in Edwards' " Gleanings of 
Natural History " (1758). 



I BUFFON'S JOCKO. 19 

Buffon was more fortunate than his great rival. 
Not only had he the rare opportunity of examin- 
ing a young Chimpanzee in the living state, but he 
became possessed of an adult Asiatic man-like Ape 
— the first and the last adult specimen of any of 
these animals brought to Europe for many years. 
With the valuable assistance of Daubenton, Buf- 
fon gave an excellent description of this creature, 
which, from its singular proportions, he termed 
the long-armed Ape, or Gibbon. It is the modern 
Hylohates lar. 

Thus when, in 1766, Buff on wrote the four- 
teenth volume of his great work, he was personally 
familiar with the young of one kind of African 
man-like Ape, and with the adult of an Asiatic 
species — while the Orang-Utan and the Mandrill 
of Smith were known to him by report. Further- 
more, the Abbe Prevost had translated a good deal 
of Purchas' " Pilgrims " into French, in his " His- 
toire generale des Voyages " (1748), and there Buf- 
fon found a version of Andrew Battell's account 
of the Pongo and the Engeco. All these data Buf- 
f on attempts to weld together into harmony in this 
chapter entitled " Les Orang-outangs ou le Pongo 
et le Jocko.'^ To this title the following note is 
appended: — 

" Orang-outang nom de cet animal aux Indes orien- 
tales: Pongo nom de eet animal h Lowando Province de 
Congo. 

" Jocko, Enjocko, nom de eet animal a Congo que nous 
avons adopts. En est I'article que nous avons retranchS." 



20 THE MAN-LIKE APES. i 

Thus it was that Andrew Battell's " Engeco '' 
became metamorphosed into " Jocko/' and, in the 
latter shape, was spread all over the world, in con- 
sequence of the extensive popularity of Buffon's 
works. The Abbe Prevost and Buffon between 
them however, did a good deal more disfigurement 
to BattelFs sober account than " cutting off an 
article." Thus BattelFs statement that the Pon- 
gos " cannot speake, and have no understanding 
more than a beast/' is rendered by Buffon " qu'il 
ne pent parler quoiquHl ait plus d'entendement que 
les autres animaux; " and again, Purchas' affirma- 
tion, " He told me in conference with him, that 
one of these Pongos tooke a negro boy of his 
which lived a moneth with them," stands in the 
Prench version, " un pongo lui enleva un petit 
negre qui passa un an entier dans la societe de 
ces animaux." 

After quoting the account of the great Pongo, 
Buffon justly remarks, that all the " Jockos " and 
" Orangs " hitherto brought to Europe were young; 
and he suggests that, in their adult condition, they 
might be as big as the Pongo or " great Orang; " 
so that, provisionally, he regarded the Jockos, 
Orangs, and Pongos as all of one species. And 
perhaps this was as much as the state of knowl- 
edge at the time warranted. But how it came about 
that Buffon failed to perceive the similarity of 
Smith's '^ Mandrill" to his own "Jocko," and 
confounded the former with so totally different a 



I BUFFON'S JOCKO. 21 

creature as the blue-faced Baboon^ is not so easily 
intelligible. 

Twenty years later Buffon changed his opin- 
ion,* and expressed his belief that the Orangs con- 
stituted a genus with two species, — a large one, 
the Pongo of Battell, and a small one, the Jocko: 
that the small one (Jocko) is the East Indian 
Orang; and that the young animals from Africa, 
observed by himself and Tulpius, are simply young 
Pongos. 

In the meanwhile, the Dutch naturalist, Vos- 
maer, gave, in 1778, a very good account and figure 
of a young Orang, brought alive to Holland, and 
his countryman, the famous anatomist, Peter Cam- 
per, published (1779) an essay on the Orang-Utan 
of similar value to that of Tyson on the Chim- 
panzee. He dissected several females and a male, 
all of which, from the state of their skeleton and 
their dentition, he justly supposes to have been 
young. However, judging by the analogy of man, 
he concludes that they could not have exceeded 
four feet in height in the adult condition. Fur- 
thermore, he is very clear as to the specific dis- 
tinctness of the true East Indian Orang. 

" The Orang," says he, " differs not only from 
the Pigmy of Tyson and from the Orang of 
Tulpius by its peculiar colour and its long toes, 
but also by its whole external form. Its arms, its 
hands, and its feet are longer, while the thumbs, 

* Histoire Naturelle, Suppl. Tome 7eme, 1789. 



22 THE MAN-LIKE APES. I 

on the contrary, are much shorter, and the great 
toes much smaller in proportion/^ * And again, 
^^ The true Orang, that is to say, that of Asia, that 
of Borneo, is consequently not the Pithecus, or 
tail-less Ape, which the Greeks, and especially 
Galen, have described. It is neither the Pongo 
nor the Jocko, nor the Orang of Tulpius, nor the 
Pigmy of Tyson, — it is an animal of a peculiar 
species, as I shall prove in the clearest manner by 
the organs of voice and the skeleton in the follow- 
ing chapters " Q. c. p. 64). 

A few years later, M. Eadermacher, who held 
a high office in the Government of the Dutch 
dominions in India, and was an active member 
of the Batavian Society of Arts and Sciences, pub- 
lished, in the second part of the Transactions of 
that Society, f a Description of the Island of 
Borneo, which was written between the years 1779 
and 1781, and, among much other interesting 
matter, contains some notes upon the Orang. 
The small sort of Orang-Utan, viz. that of Vos- 
maer and of Edwards, he says, is found only in 
Borneo, and chiefly about Banjermassing, Mam- 
pauwa, and Landak. Of these he had seen some 
fifty during his residence in the Indies; but none 
exceeded 2J feet in length. The larger sort, often 
regarded as a chimsera, continues Eadermacher, 
would perhaps long have remained so, had it not 

* Camper, (Euvres, i., p. 56. 

t Verhandelingen van het Bataviaasch Genootschap, 
Tweede Deel. Derde Druk. 1826. 



I THE ORANG-OUTANa. 23 

been for the exertions of the Resident at Rembang, 
M. Palm, who, on returning from Landak towards 
Pontiana, shot one, and forwarded it to Batavia in 
spirit, for transmission to Enrope. 

Palm's letter describing the capture runs thus: 
— "Herewith I send your Excellency, contrary 
to all expectation (since long ago I offered more 
than a hundred ducats to the natives for an Orang- 
utan of four or five feet high) an Orang which I 
heard of this morning about eight o'clock. For a 
long time we did our best to take the frightful 
beast alive in the dense forest about half way to 
Landak. We forgot even to eat, so anxious were 
we not to let him escape; but it was necessary to 
take care that he did not revenge himself, as he 
kept continually breaking off heavy pieces of wood 
and green branches, and dashing them at us. This 
game lasted till four o'clock in the afternoon, when 
we determined to shoot him; in which I succeeded 
very well, and indeed better than I ever shot from a 
boat before; for the bullet went just into the side 
of his chest, so that he was not much damaged. We 
got him into the prow still living, and bound him 
fast, and next morning he died of his wounds. All 
Pantiana came on board to see him when we ar- 
rived." Palm gives his height from the head to 
the heel as 49 inches. 

A very intelligent German officer. Baron Yon 
Wurmb, who at this time held a post in the Dutch 
East India service, and was Secretary of the Bata- 



24 THE MAN-LIKE APES. i 

vian Society, studied this animal, and his careful 
description of it, entitled " Beschrijving van der 
Groote Borneosche Orang-outang of de Oost-In- 
dische Pongo," is contained in the same volume of 
the Batavian Society^s Transactions. After Von 
Wurmb had drawn up his description he states, 
in a letter dated Batavia, Feb. 18, 1781,* that the 
specimen was sent to Europe in brandy to be placed 
in the collection of the Prince of Orange; " un- 
fortunately,'^ he continues, " we hear that the ship 
has been wrecked." Von Wurmb died in the 
course of the year 1781, the letter in which this 
passage occurs being the last he wrote; but in his 
posthumous papers, published in the fourth part 
of the Transactions of the Batavian Society, there 
is a brief description, with measurements, of a fe- 
male Pongo four feet high. 

Did either of these original specimens, on 
which Von Wurmb's descriptions are based, ever 
reach Europe? It is commonly supposed that they 
did; but I doubt the fact. For, appended to the 
memoir " De POurang-outang," in the collected 
edition of Camper's works, tome i., pp. 64^66, is a 
note by Camper himself, referring to Von Wurmb's 
papers, and continuing thus: — "Heretofore, this 
kind of ape had never been known in Europe. 
Eadermacher has had the kindness to send me the 
skull of one of these animals, which measured 

* " Brief e des Herrn v. Wurmb und des H. Baron von 
WoUzogen. Gotha, 1794." 



I THE ORANG-OUTANG. 25 

fifty-three inches, or four feet five inches, in 
height. I have sent some sketches of it to M. Soem- 
mering at Mayence, which are better calculated, 
however, to give an idea of the form than of the 
real size of the parts." 

These sketches have been reproduced by Fischer 
and by Lucae, and bear date 1783, Soemmering 




Fig. 7. — The Pongo Skull, sent by Radermacher to 
Camper, after Camper's original sketches, as reproduced 
by Luc£e. 

having received them in 1784. Had either of Von 
Wurmb's specimens reached Holland, they would 
hardly have been unknown at this time to Camper, 
who, however, goes on to say: — " It appears that 
since this, some more of these monsters have been 
captured, for an entire skeleton, very badly set 
up, which had been sent to the Museum of the 



26 THE MAN-LIKE APES. i 

Prince of Orange, and which I saw only on the 
27th of June, 1784, was more than four feet high. 
I examined this skeleton again on the 19th De- 
cember, 1785, after it had been excellently put to 
rights by the ingenious Onymus/^ 

It appears evident, then, that this skeleton, 
which is doubtless that which has always gone by 
the name of Wurmb^s Pongo, is not that of the 
animal described by him, though unquestionably 
similar in all essential points. 

Camper proceeds, to note some of the most im- 
portant features of this skeleton; promises to de- 
scribe it in detail by-and-bye; and is evidently in 
doubt as to the relation of this great " Pongo " to 
his "petit Orang." 

The promised further investigations were never 
carried out; and so it happened that the Pongo of 
Von Wurmb took its place by the side of the Chim- 
panzee, Gibbon, and Orang as a fourth and colossal 
species of man-like Ape. And indeed nothing 
could look much less like the Chimpanzees or the 
Orangs, then known, than the Pongo; for all the 
specimens of Chimpanzee and Orang which had 
been observed were small of stature, singularly 
human in aspect, gentle and docile; while Wurmb's 
Pongo was a monster almost twice their size, of 
vast strength and fierceness, and very brutal in 
expression; its great projecting muzzle, armed with 
strong teeth, being fiirther disfigured by the out- 
growth of the cheeks into fleshy lobes. 



i THE ORANG-OUTANa. 21 

Eventually, in accordance with the usual ma- 
rauding habits of the Eevolutionary armieS;, the 
" Pongo " skeleton was carried away from Hol- 
land into France, and notices of it, expressly 
intended to demonstrate its entire distinctness 
from the Orang and its affinity with the baboons, 
were given, in 1798, by Geoffroy St. Hilaire and 
Cuvier. 

Even in Cuvier^s " Tableau Elementaire," and 
in the first edition of his great work, the " Eegne 
Animal," the " Pongo " is classed as a species of 
Baboon. However, so early as 1818, it appears that 
Cuvier saw reason to alter this opinion, and to 
adopt the view suggested several years before by 
Blumenbach,* and after him by Tilesius, that the 
Bornean Pongo is simply an adult Orang. In 1824, 
Eudolphi demonstrated, by the condition of the 
dentition, more fully and completely than had been 
done by his predecessors, that the Orangs described 
up to that time were all young animals, and that 
the skull and teeth of the adult would probably be 
such as those seen in the Pongo of Wurmb. In 
the second edition of the " Regne Animal " (1829), 
Cuvier infers, from the " proportions of all the 
parts " and " the arrangements of the foramina 
and sutures of the head," that the Pongo is the 
adult of the Orang-Utan, " at least of a very close- 

* See Blumenbach AhMldtmgen NaturJiistorichen Ge- 
genstande, No. 12, 1810; and Tilesius, Naturhistoriche 
Friichte der ersten Kaiserlich-Bussischen Erdumsegelung, 
p. 115, 1813. 



28 THE MAN-LIKE APES. | 

ly allied species/^ and this conclusion was eventu- 
ally placed beyond all doubt by Professor Owen's 
Memoir published in the " Zoological Transac- 
tions " for 1835, and by Temminck in his " Mono- 
graphies de Mammalogie/' Temminck's memoir is 
remarkable for the completeness of the evidence 
which it affords as to the modification which the 
form of the Orang undergoes according to age 
and sex. Tiedemann first published an account 
of the brain of the young Orang, while Sandifort, 
Miiller and Schlegel, described the muscles and 
the viscera of the adult, and gave the earliest de- 
tailed and trustworthy history of the habits of 
the great Indian Ape in a state of nature; and 
as important additions have been made by later 
observers, we are at this moment better ac- 
quainted with the adult of the Orang-Utan, than 
with that of any of the other greater man-like 
Apes. 

It is certainly the Pongo of Wurmb; * and it is 
as certainly not the Pongo of Battell, seeing that 
the Orang-Utan is entirely confined to the great 
Asiatic islands of Borneo and Sumatra. 

And while the progress of discovery thus 
cleared up the history of the Orang, it also became 
established that the only other man-like Apes in 
the eastern world were the various species of Gib- 
bon — Apes of smaller stature, and therefore at- 

* Speaking broadly and without prejudice to the ques- 
tion, whether there be more than one species of Orang. 



1 THE CPIIMPANZEE. 29 

tracting less attention than the Orangs, though 
they are spread over a much wider range of 
country, and are hence more accessible to observa- 
tion. 

Although the geographical area inhabited by 
the " Pongo " and " Engeco " of Battell is so much 
nearer to Europe than that in which the Orang 
and Gibbon are found, our acquaintance with the 
African Apes has been of slower growth; indeed, 
it is only within the last few years that the truth- 
ful story of the old English adventurer has been 
rendered fully intelligible. It was not until 1835 
that the skeleton of the adult Chimpanzee became 
known, by the publication of Professor Owen's 
above-mentioned very excellent memoir " On the 
Osteology of the Chimpanzee and Orang," in the 
Zoological Transactions — a memoir which, by the 
accuracy of its descriptions, the carefulness of its 
comparisons, and the excellence of its figures, made 
an epoch in the history of our knowledge of the 
bony framework, not only of the Chimpanzee, but 
of all the anthropoid Apes. 

By the investigations herein detailed, it became 
evident that the old Chimpanzee acquired a size 
and aspect as different from those of the young 
known to Tyson, to Buffon, and to Traill, as those 
of the old Orang from the young Orang; and the 
subsequent very important researches of Messrs. 
Savage and Wyman, the American missionary and 



30 THE MAN-LIKE APES. i 

anatomist, have not only confirmed this conclu- 
sion, but have added many new details.* 

One of the most interesting among the many 
valuable discoveries made by Dr. Thomas Savage 
is the fact, that the natives in the Gaboon country 
at the present day, apply to the Chimpanzee a 
name — " Enche-eko " — which is obviously identi- 
cal with the " Engeko '' of Battell; a discovery 
which has been confirmed by all later inquirers. 
Battell's " lesser monster '^ being thus proved to 
be a veritable existence, of course a strong pre- 
sumption arose that his " greater monster," the 
" Pongo," would sooner or later be discovered. 
And, indeed, a modern traveller, Bowdich, had, in 
1819^ found strong evidence, among the natives, 
of the existence of a second great Ape, called the 
" Ingena," " five feet high, and four across the 
shoulders," the builder of a rude house, on the 
outside of which it slept. 

In 1847, I>r. Savage had the good fortune to 
make another and most important addition to our 
knowledge of the man-like Apes; for, being un- 
expectedly detained at the Gaboon river, he saw in 
the house of the Eev. Mr. Wilson, a missionary 
resident there, " a skull represented by the natives 
to be a monkey-like animal, remarkable for its 

* See " Observations on the external characters and hab- 
its of the Troglodytes niger, by Thomas N. Savage, M. D., 
and on its organization, by Jeffries Wyman, M. D.," Bos- 
Ion Journal of Natural History, vol. iv. 1843-4; and 
" External characters, habits, and osteology of Troglo- 
dytes Gorilla," by the same authors, ibid. vol. v. 1847. 



I THE GORILLA. 31 

size, ferocity, and habits." From the contour of the 
skull, and the information derived from several 
intelligent natives, " I was induced," says Dr. Sav- 
age (using the term Orang in its old general sense) 
" to believe that it belonged to a new species of 
Orang. I expressed this opinion to Mr. Wilson, with 
a desire for further investigation; and, if possible, 
to decide the point by the inspection of a specimen 
alive or dead." The result of the combined exer- 
tions of Messrs. Savage and Wilson was not only 
the obtaining of a very full account of the habits 
of this new creature, but a still more important 
service to science, the enabling the excellent 
American anatomist already mentioned. Professor 
Wyman, to describe, from ample materials, the 
distinctive osteological characters of the new form. 
This animal was called by the natives of the Gaboon 
" Enge-ena," a name obviously identical with the 
" Ingena " of Bowdich; and Dr. Savage arrived at 
the conviction that this last discovered of all the 
great Apes was the long-sought " Pongo " of Bat- 
tell. 

The justice of this conclusion, indeed, is beyond 
doubt — for not only does the " Enge-ena " agree 
with Battell's " greater monster " in its hollow 
eyes, its great stature, and its dun or iron-grey 
colour, but the only other man-like Ape which 
inhabits these latitudes — the Chimpanzee — is at 
once identified, by its smaller size, as the " lesser 
monster," and is excluded from any possibility of 



32 THE MAN-LIKE APES. i 

being the " Pongo/^ by the fact that it is black 
and not dun, to say nothing of the important cir- 
cumstance already mentioned that it still retains 
the name of " Engeko/' or " Enche-eko," by which 
Battell knew it. 

In seeking for a specific name for the " Enge- 
ena," however. Dr. Savage wisely avoided the 
much misused "Pongo"; but finding in the 
ancient Periplus of Hanno the word " Gorilla " 
applied to certain hairy savage people, discovered 
by the Carthaginian voyager in an island on the 
African coast, he attached the specific name 
" Gorilla " to his new ape, whence arises its pres- 
ent well-known appellation. But Dr. Savage, more 
cautious than some of his successors, by no means 
identifies his ape with Hanno's " wild men." He 
merel}^ says that the latter were " probably one of 
the species of the Orang; " and I quite agree with 
M. Brulle, that there is no ground for identifying 
the modern " Gorilla " with that of the Carthagin- 
ian admiral. 

Since the memoir of Savage and Wyman was 
published, the skeleton of the Gorilla has been 
investigated by Professor Owen and by the late 
Professor Duvernoy, of the Jardin des Plantes, the 
latter having further supplied a valuable account 
of the muscular system and of many of the other 
soft parts; while African missionaries and travellers 
have confirmed and expanded the account origi- 
nally given of the habits of this great man-like 



I THE GIBBON'S. 33 

Ape, which has had the singular fortune of being 
the first to be made known to the general world 
and the last to be scientifically investigated. 

Two centuries and a half have passed away 
since Battell told his stories about the " greater '^ 
and the " lesser monsters " to Purchas, and it has 
taken nearly that time to arrive at the clear re- 
sult that there are four distinct kinds of Anthro- 
poids — in Eastern Asia, the Gibbons and the 
Orangs; in Western Africa, the Chimpanzees and 
the Gorilla. 

The man-like Apes, the history of the discovery 
of which has just been detailed, have certain char- 
acters of structure and of distribution in common. 
Thus they all have the same number of teeth as 
man — possessing four incisors, two canines, four 
false molars, and six true molars in each jaw, or 
32 teeth in all, in the adult condition; while the 
milk dentition consists of 20 teeth — or four in- 
cisors, two canines, and four molars in each jaw. 
They are what are called catarrhine Apes — that is, 
their nostrils have a narrow partition and look 
downwards; and, furthermore, their arms are al- 
ways longer than their legs, the difference being 
sometimes greater and sometimes less; so that if 
the four were arranged in the order of the length 
of their arms in proportion to that of their legs, 
we should have this series — Orang (1^ — 1), Gibbon 
(li— 1), Gorilla (4—1), Chimpanzee (l-jir-l)^ 
167 



34 THE MAN-LIKE APES. i 

In all, the fore limbs are terminated by hands, 
provided with longer or shorter thumbs; while 
the great toe of the foot, always smaller than in 
Man, is far more movable than in him and can be 
opposed, like a thumb, to the rest of the foot. 
None of these apes have tails, and none of them 
possess the cheek-pouches common among mon- 
keys. Finally, they are all inhabitants of the old 
world. 

The Gibbons are the smallest, slenderest, and 
longest-limbed of the man-like Apes: their arms 
are longer in proportion to their bodies than those 
of any of the other man-like Apes, so that they 
can touch the ground when erect; their hands are 
longer than their feet, and they are the only An- 
thropoids which possess callosities like the lower 
monkeys. They are variously coloured. The 
Orangs have arms which reach to the ankles in 
the erect position of the animal; their thumbs and 
great toes are very short, and their feet are longer 
than their hands. They are covered with reddish 
brown hair, and the sides of the face, in adult 
males, are commonly produced into two crescentic, 
flexible excrescences, like fatty tumours. The 
Chimpanzees have arms which reach below the 
knees; they have large thumbs and great toes; 
their hands are longer than their feet; and their 
hair is black, while the skin of the face is pale. 
The Grorilla, lastly, has arms which reach to the 
middle of the leg, large thumbs and great toes, 



I THE GIBBONS. 35 

feet longer than the hands, a black face, and dark- 
grey or dun hair. 

For the purpose which I have at present in 
view, it is unnecessary that I should enter into any 
further minutiae respecting the distinctive char- 
acters of the genera and species into which these 
man-like Apes are divided by naturalists. Suf- 
fice it to say, that the Orangs and the Gibbons con- 
stitute the distinct genera, Simla and Hylobates; 
while the Chimpanzees and Grorillas are by some 
regarded simply as distinct species of one genus. 
Troglodytes; by others as distinct genera — Trog- 
lodytes being reserved for the Chimpanzees, and 
Gorilla for the Enge-ena or Pongo. 

Sound knowledge respecting the habits and 
mode of life of the man-like Apes has been even 
more difficult of attainment than correct informa- 
tion regarding their structure. 

Once in a generation, a Wallace may be found 
physically, mentally, and morally qualified to 
wander unscathed through the tropical wilds of 
America and of Asia; to form magnificent collec- 
tions as he wanders; and withal to think out saga- 
ciously the conclusions suggested by his collections: 
but, to the ordinary explorer or collector, the dense 
forests of equatorial Asia and Africa, which con- 
stitute the favourite habitation of the Orang, the 
Chimpanzee, and the Gorilla, present difficulties 
of no ordinary magnitude; and the man who risks 



36 THE MAN-LIKE APES. i 

his life by even a short visit to the malarious shores 
of those regions may well be excused if he shrinks 
from facing the dangers of the interior; if he con- 
tents himself with stimulating the industry of the 
better seasoned natives, and collecting and collat- 
ing the more or less mythical reports and traditions 
with which they are too ready to supply him. 

In such a manner most of the earlier accounts 
of the habits of the man-like Apes originated; 
and even now a good deal of what passes current 
must be admitted to have no very safe foundation. 
The best information we possess is that, based 
almost wholly on direct European testimony, re- 
specting the Gibbons; the next best evidence re- 
lates to the Orangs; while our knowledge of the 
habits of the Chimpanzee and the Gorilla stands 
much in need of support and enlargement by ad- 
ditional testimony from instructed European eye- 
witnesses. 

It will therefore be convenient in endeavour- 
ing to form a notion of what we are justified in 
believing about these animals, to commence with 
the best known man-like Apes, the Gibbons and 
Orangs; and to make use of the perfectly trust- 
worthy information respecting them as a sort of 
criterion of the probable truth or falsehood of 
assertions respecting the others. 

Of the GiBBON"S, half a dozen species are found 
scattered over the Asiatic islands, Java, Sumatra, 
Borneo, and through Malacca, Siam, Arracan, 



I THE GIBBONS. Si 

and an uncertain extent of Hindostan, on the 
main land of Asia. The largest attain a few inches 
above three feet in height, from the crown to the 
heel, so that they are shorter than the other man- 
like Apes; while the slenderness of their bodies 
renders their mass far smaller in proportion even 
to this diminished height. 

Dr. Salomon Miiller, an accomplished Dutch 
naturalist, who lived for many years in the East- 
ern Archipelago, and to the results of whose per- 
sonal experience I shall frequently have occasion 
to refer, states that the Gibbons are true moun- 
taineers, loving the slopes and edges of the hills, 
though they rarely ascend beyond the limit of the 
fig-trees. All day long they haunt the tops of the 
tall trees; and though, towards evening, they 
descend in small troops to the open ground, 
no sooner do they spy a man than they dart 
up the hill-sides, and disappear in the darker 
valleys. 

All observers testify to the prodigious volume 
of voice possessed by these animals. According 
to the writer whom I have Just cited, in one of 
them, the Siamang, " the voice is grave and pene- 
trating, resembling the sounds goek, goek, goek, 
goek, goek ha ha ha ha haaaaa, and may easily be 
heard at a distance of half a league." While the 
cry is being uttered, the great membranous bag 
under the throat which communicates with the 
organ of voice, the so-called "laryngeal sac," be- 




'^ -^'~^-^Xs, _W-''^ 



Fig. 8.— a Gibbon {E. pileatus), after Wolf. 



I THE GIBBONS. 39, 

comes greatly distended, diminishing again when 
the creature relapses into silence. 

M. Duvaucel, likewise, affirms that the cry of 
the Siamang may be heard for miles — making the 
woods ring again. So Mr. Martin * describes the 
cry of the agile Gibbon as " overpowering and 
deafening " in a room, and " from its strength^ 
well calculated for resounding through the vast 
forests." Mr. Waterhouse, an accomplished mu- 
sician as well as zoologist, says, " The Gibbon's 
voice is certainly much more powerful than that 
of any singer I ever heard." And yet it is to be 
recollected that this animal is not half the height 
of, and far less bulky in proportion than, a man. 

There is good testimony that various species 
of Gibbon readily take to the erect posture. Mr. 
George Bennett,]- a very excellent observer, in de- 
scribing the habits of a male Hylobates syndadylus 
which remained for some time in his possession^ 
says: "He invariably walks in the erect posture 
when on a level surface; and then the arms either 
hang down, enabling him to assist himself with his 
knuckles; or what is more usual, he keeps his arms 
uplifted in nearly an erect position, with the hands 
pendent ready to seize a rope, and climb up on 
the approach of danger or on the obtrusion of 
strangers. He walks rather quick in the erect 
posture, but with a waddling gait, and is soon run 

* Man and Monkies, p. 423. 

t Wanderings in New South Wales, vol. ii. chap. viii. 
1834. 



40 THE MAN-LIKE APES. i 

down if, whilst pursued, he has no opportunity of 
escaping by climbing. . . . When he walks in the 
erect posture he turns the leg and foot outwards, 
which occasions him to have a w^addling gait and 
to seem bow-legged." 

Dr. Burrough states of another Gibbon, the 
Horlack or Hooluk: 

" They walk erect ; and when placed on the floor, or in 
an open field, balance themselves very prettily, by rais- 
ing their hands over their head and slightly bending the 
arm at the wrist and elbow, and then run tolerably fast, 
rocking from side to side; and, if urged to greater speed, 
they let fall their hands to the ground, and assist them- 
selves forward, rather jumping than running, still keep- 
ing the body, however, nearly erect." 

Somewhat different evidence, however, is given 
by Dr. Winslow Lewis: * 

" Their only manner of walking was on their 
posterior or inferior extremities, the others being 
raised upwards to preserve their equilibrium, as 
rope-dancers are assisted by long poles at fairs. 
Their progression was not by placing one foot be- 
fore the other, but by simultaneously using both, 
as in jumping." Dr. Salomon Muller also states 
that the Gibbons progress along the ground by 
short series of tottering jumps, effected only by 
the hind limbs, the body being held altogether 
upright. 

But Mr. Martin {I c, p. 418), who also speaks 

* Boston Journal of Natural History, vol. i. 1834. 



I THE GIBBONS. 41 

from direct observation, says of the Gibbons 
generally: 

" Pre-eminently qualified for arboreal habits, and dis- 
playing among the branches amazing activity, the Gib- 
bons are not so awkward or embarrassed on a level sur- 
face as might be imagined. They walk erect, with a 
waddling or unsteady gait, but at a quick pace; the 
equilibrium of the body requiring to be kept up, either by 
touching the ground with the knuckles, first on one side 
then on the other, or by uplifting the arms so as to poise 
it. As with the Chimpanzee, the whole of the narrow, 
long sole of the foot is placed upon the ground at once and 
raised at once, without any elasticity of step." 

After tbis mass of concurrent and independent 
testimony, it cannot reasonably be doubted that 
the Gibbons commonly and habitually assume the 
erect attitude. 

But level ground is not the place where these 
animals can display their very remarkable and pe- 
culiar locomotive powers, and that prodigious 
activity which almost tempts one to rank them 
among flying, rather than among ordinary climb- 
ing mammals. 

Mr. Martin (I. c. p. 430) has given so excellent 
and graphic an account of the movements of a 
Hylohates agilis, living in the Zoological Gardens, 
in 1840, that I will quote it in full: 

" It is almost impossible to convey in words an idea 
of the quickness and graceful address of her movements: 
they may indeed be termed aerial, as she seems merely to 
touch in her progress the branches among which she ex- 



4:2 THE MAN-LIKE APES. i 

hibits her evolutions. In these feats her hands and arms 
are the sole organs of locomotion; her body hanging as if 
suspended by a rope, sustained by one hand (the right for 
example), she launches herself, by an energetic movement, 
to a distant branch, which she catches with the left hand ; 
but her hold is less than momentary: the impulse for the 
next launch is acquired: the branch then aimed at is 
attained by the right hand again and quitted instantane- 
ously, and so on in alternate succession. In this manner 
spaces of twelve and eighteen feet are cleared, with the 
greatest ease and uninterruptedly, for hours together, 
without the slightest appearance of fatigue being mani- 
fested; and it is evident that if more space could be al- 
lowed, distances very greatly exceeding eighteen feet 
would be as easily cleared; so that Duvaucel's assertion 
that he had seen these animals launch themselves from 
one branch to another, forty feet asunder, startling as it 
is, may be well credited. Sometimes, on seizing a branch 
in her progress, she ^vill throw herself, by the power of 
one arm only, completely round it, making a revolution 
with such rapidity as almost to deceive the eye, and con- 
tinue her progress with undiminished velocity. It is sin- 
gular to observe how suddenly this Gibbon can stop, when 
the impetus given by the rapidity and distance of her 
swinging leaps would seem to require a gradual abate- 
ment of her movements. In the very midst of her flight 
a branch is seized, the body raised, and she is seen, as if 
by magic, quietly seated on it, grasping it with her feet. 
As suddenly she again throws herself into action. 

" The following facts will convey some notion of her 
dexterity and quickness. A live bird was let loose in her 
apartment; she marked its flight, made a long swing to a 
distant branch, caught the bird with one hand in her pas- 
sage, and attained the branch with her other hand; her 
aim, both at the bird and at the branch, being as success- 
ful as if one object only had engaged her attention. It 



I THE GIBBONS. 43 

may be added that she instantly bit off the head of the 
bird, picked its feathers, and then threw it down without 
attempting to eat it. 

" On another occasion this animal swung herself from 
a perch, across a passage at least twelve feet wide, against 
a window which it was thought would be immediately 
broken: but not so; to the surprise of all, she caught the 
narrow framework between the panes with her hand, in 
an instant attained the proper impetus, and sprang back 
again to the cage she had left — a feat requiring not only 
great strength, but the nicest precision." 

The Gibbons appear to be naturally very 
gentle, but there is very good evidence that they 
will bite severely when irritated — a female Hylo- 
lates agilis having so severely lacerated one man 
with her long canines, that he died; while she had 
injured others so much that, by way of precaution, 
these formidable teeth had been filed down; but, 
if threatened, she would still turn on her keeper. 
The Gibbons eat insects, but appear generally to 
avoid animal food. A Siamang, however, was 
seen by Mr. Bennett to seize and devour greedily 
a live lizard. They commonly drink by dipping 
their fingers in the liquid and then licking them. 
It is asserted that they sleep in a sitting posture. 

Duvaucel affirms that he has seen the females 
carry their young to the waterside and there wash 
their faces, in spite of resistance and cries. They 
are gentle and affectionate in captivity — full of 
tricks and pettishness, like spoiled children, and 
yet not devoid of a certain conscience, as an anec- 



44 THE MAN-LIKE APES. i 

dote, told by Mr. Bennett (I. c. p. 156), will show. 
It would appear that his Gibbon had a peculiar in- 
clination for disarranging things in the cabin. 
Among these articles, a piece of soap would espe- 
cially attract his notice, and for the removal of 
this he had been once or twice scolded. " One 
morning," says Mr. Bennett, '' I was writing, the 
ape being present in the cabin, when casting my 
eyes towards him, I saw the little fellow taking the 
soap. I watched him without his perceiving that 
I did so: and he occasionally would cast a furtive 
glance towards the place where I sat. I pretended 
to write; he, seeing me busily occupied, took the 
soap, and moved away with it in his paw. When 
he had walked half the length of the cabin, I 
spoke quietly, without frightening him. The in- 
stant he found I saw him, he walked back again, 
and deposited the soap nearly in the same place 
from whence he had taken it. There was certainly 
something more than instinct in that action: he 
evidently betrayed a consciousness of having done 
wrong both by his first and last actions — and what 
is reason if that is not an exercise of it?" 

The most elaborate account of the natural 
history of the ORANG-IJTAisr extant, is that given 
in the " Verhandelingen over de Natuurlijke Ge- 
schiedenis der Nederlandsche overzeesche Bezit- 
tingen (1839-'45)," by Dr. Salomon Miiller and 
Dr. Schlegel, and I shall base what I have to say 




«,^,,-v 



'■^--^-^il^,,^ 



Fig 9 -An adult male Orang-Utan, after MiiUer and 
Schlegel. 



46 THE MAN-LIKE APES. i 

upon this STibjeet almost entirely on their state- 
ments^ adding, here and there, particulars of in- 
terest from the writings of Brooke, Wallace, and 
others. 

The Orang-Utan would rarely seem to exceed 
four feet in height, but the body is very bulky, 
measuring two-thirds of the height in circumfer- 
ence.* 

The Orang-Utan is found only in Sumatra and 
Borneo, and is common in neither of these islands 
— in both of which it occurs always in low, flat 
plains, never in the mountains. It loves the 
densest and most sombre of the forests, which 
extend from the sea-shore inland, and thus is 
found only in the eastern half of Sumatra, where 
alone such forests occur, though, occasionally, it 
strays over to the western side. 

* The largest Orang-Utan, cited by Temminck, meas- 
ured, when standing upright, four feet; but he mentions 
having just received news of the capture of an Orang 
five feet three inches high. Schlegel and Mtiller say that 
their largest old male measured, upright, 1.25 Nether- 
lands " el " ; and from the crown to the end of the toes, 
1.5 el; the circumference of the body being about 1 el. 
The largest old female was 1.09 el high, when standing. 
The adult skeleton in the College of Surgeons' Museum, 
if set upright, would stand 3 ft. 6-8 in. from crown to 
sole. Dr. Humphry gives 3 ft. 8 in. as the mean height 
of two Orangs. Of seventeen Orangs examined by Mr. 
Wallace, the largest was 4 ft. 2 in. high, from the heel to 
the crown of the head. Mr. Spencer St. John, however, in 
his Life in the Forests of tlie Far East, tells us of an 
Orang of " 5 ft. 2 in., measuring fairly from the head to 
the heel," 15 in. across the face, and 12 in. round the 
wrist. It does not appear, however, that Mr. St. John 
measured this Orang himself. 



I THE ORANG. 47 

On the other hand, it is generally distributed 
through Borneo, except in the mountains, or 
where the population is dense. In favourable 
places, the hunter may, by good fortune, see three 
or four in a day. 

Except in the pairing time, the old males 
usually live by themselves. The old females, and 
the immature males, on the other hand, are often 
met with in twos and threes; and the former oc- 
casionally have young with them, though the 
pregnant females usually separate themselves, and 
sometimes remain apart after they have given 
birth to their offspring. The young Orangs seem 
to remain unusually long under their mother's pro- 
tection, probably in consequence of their slow 
growth. While climbing, the mother always car-, 
lies her young against her bosom, the young hold- 
ing on by his mother's hair.* At what time of 
life the Orang-Utan becomes capable of propaga- 
tion, and how long the females go with young, is 
unknown, but it is probable that they are not adult 
until they arrive at ten or fifteen years of age. A 
female which lived for five years at Batavia had not 
attained one-third the height of the wild females. 
It is probable that, after reaching adult years, they 

* See Mr. Wallace's account of an infant " Orang- 
utan," in the Annals of Natural History for 1856. Mr. 
Wallace provided his interesting charge with an artificial 
mother of buflfalo-skin, but the cheat was too successful. 
The infant's entire experience led it to associate teats with 
hair, and feeling the latter, it spent its existence in vain 
endeavours to discover the former. 



48 THE MAN-LIKE APES. i 

go on growing, though slowly, and that they live to 
forty or fifty years. The Dyaks tell of old Orangs, 
which have not only lost all their teeth, but which 
find it so tronblesome to climb, that they maintain 
themselves on windfalls and jnicy herbage. 

The Orang is sluggish, exhibiting none of that 
marvellons activity characteristic of the Gibbons. 
Hunger alone seems to stir him to exertion, and 
v/hen it is stilled, he relapses into repose. Wlien 
the animal sits, it curves its back and bows its 
head, so as to look straight down on the ground; 
sometimes it holds on with its hands by a higher 
branch, sometimes lets them hang phlegmatically 
down by its side — and in these positions the 
Orang will remain, for hours together, in the same 
spot, almost without stirring, and only now and 
then giving utterance to his deep, growling voice. 
By day he usually climbs from one tree-top to 
another, and only at night descends to the ground, 
and if then threatened with danger, he seeks 
refuge among the underwood. When not hunted,, 
he remains a long time in the same locality, and 
sometimes stops for many days on the same tree 
— a firm place among its branches serving him for 
a bed. It is rare for the Orang to pass the night 
in the summit of a large tree, probably because it 
is too windy and cold there for him; but, as soon 
as night draws on, he descends from the height 
and seeks out a fit bed in the lower and darker 
part, or in the leafy top of a small tree, among 



I THE ORANG. 49 

which he prefers Nibong Palms, Pandani, or one 
of those parasitic Orchids which give the primaeval 
forests of Borneo so characteristic and striking an 
appearance. But wherever he determines to sleep, 
there he prepares himself a sort of nest: little 
boughs and leaves are drawn together round the 
selected spot, and bent crosswise over one another; 
while to make the bed soft, great leaves of Ferns, 
of Orchids, of Pandanus fascicularis, Nipa fruti- 
cans, &c., are laid over them. Those which Miil- 
ler saw, many of them being very fresh, were situ- 
ated at a height of ten to twenty-five feet above 
the ground, and had a circumference, on the 
average, of two or three feet. Some were packed 
many inches thick with Pandanus leaves; others 
were remarkable only for the cracked twigs, which, 
united in a common centre, formed a regular plat- 
form. ^^ The rude hut,'' says Sir James Brooke, 
^^ which they are stated to build in the trees, 
would be more properly called a seat or nest, for 
it has no roof or cover of any sort. The facility 
with which they form this nest is curious, and I 
had an opportunity of seeing a wounded female 
weave the branches together and seat herself, 
within a minute." 

According to the Dyaks the Orang rarely leaves 
his bed before the sun is well above the horizon 
and has dissipated the mists. He gets up about 
nine, and goes to bed again about five; but some- 
times not till late in the twilight. He lies some- 
168 



50 THE MAN-LIKE APES. i 

times on his back; or, by way of change, turns on 
one side or the other, drawing his limbs np to his 
body, and resting his head on his hand. When 
the night is cold, windy, or rainy, he usually covers 
his body with a heap of Pandanus, Nipa, or Fern 
leaves, like those of which his bed is made, and 
he is especially careful to wrap up his head in 
them. It is this habit of covering himself up 
which has probably led to the fable that the Orang 
builds huts in the trees. 

Although the Orang resides mostly amid the 
boughs of great trees, during the daytime, he is 
very rarely seen squatting on a thick branch, as 
other apes, and particularly the Gibbons, do. The 
Orang, on the contrary, confines himself to the 
slender leafy branches, so that he is seen right at 
the top of the trees, a mode of life which is closely 
related to the constitution of his hinder limbs, 
and especially to that of his seat. For this is pro- 
vided with no callosities, such as are possessed 
by many of the lower apes, and even by the Gib- 
bons; and those bones of the pelvis, which are 
termed the ischia, and which form the solid frame- 
work of the surface on which the body rests in 
the sitting posture, are not expanded like those 
of the apes which possess callosities, but are more 
like those of man. 

An Orang climbs so slowly and cautiously,* as, 

* " They are the sloAvest and least active of all the 
monkey tribe, and their motions are surprisingly awk- 



I THE ORANG. 51 

in this act, to resemble a man more than an ape, 
taking great care of his feet, so that injury of 
them seems to affect him far more than it does 
other apes. Unlike the Gibbons, whose forearms 
do the greater part of the work, as they swing 
from branch to branch, the Orang never makes 
even the smallest jump. In climbing, he moves 
alternately one hand and one foot, or, after having 
laid fast hold with the hands, he draws up both 
feet together. In passing from one tree to an- 
other, he always seeks out a place where the twigs 
of both come close together, or interlace. Even 
when closely pursued, his circumspection is amaz- 
ing: he shakes the branches to see if they will bear 
him, and then bending an overhanging bough 
down by throwing his weight gradually along it, 
he makes a bridge from the tree he wishes to quit 
to the next.* 

On the ground the Orang always goes labori- 
ously and shakily, on all fours. At starting he 
will run faster than a man, though he may soon 
be overtaken. The very long arms which, when 
he runs, are but little bent, raise the body of the 
Orang remarkably, so that he assumes much the 
posture of a very old man bent down by age, and 
making his way along by the help of a stick. In 
walking, the body is usually directed straight for- 
ward and uncouth." — Sir James Brooke, in the Proceed- 
ings of the Zooloyical Society, 1841. 

* Mr. Wallace's account of the progression of th6 
Orang almost exactly corresponds with this. 



52 THE MAN-LIKE APES. 1 

ward, unlike the other apes, which run more or 
less obliquely; except the Gibbons, who in these 
as in so many other respects, depart remarkably 
from their fellows. 

The Orang cannot put its feet flat on the 
ground, but is supported upon their outer edges, 
the heel resting more on the ground, while the 
curved toes partly rest upon the ground by the 
upper side of their first joint, the two outermost 
toes of each foot completely resting on this surface. 
The hands are held in the opposite manner, their 
inner edges serving as the chief support. The fin- 
gers are then bent out in such a manner that their 
foremost joints, especially those of the two inner- 
most fingers, rest upon the ground by their upper 
sides, while the point of the free and straight 
thumb serves as an additional fulcrum. 

The Orang never stands on its hind legs, and 
all the pictures, representing it as so doing, are 
as false as the assertion that it defends itself with 
sticks, and the like. 

The long arms are of especial use, not only in 
climbing, but in the gathering of food from 
boughs to which the animal could not trust his 
weight. Figs, blossoms, and young leaves of vari- 
ous kinds, constitute the chief nutriment of the 
Orang; but strips of bamboo two or three feet long 
were found in the stomach of a male. They are 
not known to eat living animals. 

Although, when taken young, the Orang-Utan 



I THE ORANG. 53 

soon becomes domesticated, and indeed seems to 
court human society, it is naturally a very wild 
and shy animal, though apparently sluggish and 
melancholy. The Dyaks affirm, that when the old 
males are wounded with arrows only, they will oc- 
casionally leave the trees and rush raging upon 
their enemies, whose sole safety lies in instant 
flight, as they are sure to be killed if caught.* 

* Sir James Brooke, in a letter to Mr, Waterhouse, 
published in the proceedings of the Zoological Society for 
1841, says: — "On the habits of the Orangs, as far as I 
have been able to observe them, I may remark that they 
are as dull and slothful as can well be conceived, and on 
no occasion, when pursuing them, did they move so fast 
as to preclude my keeping pace with them easily through 
a moderately clear forest; and even when obstructions 
below (such as wading up to the neck) allowed them to 
get away some distance, they were sure to stop and allow 
me to come up. I never observed the slightest attempt at 
defence, and the wood which sometimes rattled about our 
ears was broken by their weight, and not thrown, as some 
persons represent. If pushed to extremity, however, the 
Pappan could not be otherwise than formidable, and one 
unfortunate man, who, with a party, was trying to catch 
a large one alive, lost two of his fingers, besides being 
severely bitten on the face, whilst the animal finally beat 
off his pursuers and escaped." 

Mr. Wallace, on the other hand, affirms that he has 
several times observed them throwing down branches 
when pursued. " It is true he does not throw them at a 
person, but casts them down vertically; for it is evi- 
dent that a bough cannot be thrown to any distance from 
the top of a lofty tree. In one case a female Mias, on a 
durian tree, kept up for at least ten minutes a continu- 
ous shower of branches and of the heavy, spined fruits, as 
large as 32-pounders, which most effectually kept us clear 
of the tree she was on. She could be seen breaking them 
oflF and throwing them down with every appearance of 
rage, uttering at intervals a loud pumping grunt, and 
evidently meaning mischief." — " On the Habits of the 



54 THE MAN-LIKE APES. i 

But, though possessed of immense strength^ it 
is rare for the Orang to attempt to defend itself, 
especially when attacked with fire-arms. On such 
occasions he endeavours to hide himself, or to 
escape along the topmost branches of the trees, 
breaking off and throwing down the boughs as he 
goes. When wounded he betakes himself to the 
highest attainable point of the tree, and emits 
a singular cry, consisting at first of high notes, 
w^hich at length deepen into a low roar, not unlike 
that of a panther. While giving out the high 
notes the Orang thrusts out his lips into a funnel 
shape; but in uttering the low notes he holds his 
mouth wide open, and at the same time the great 
throat bag, or laryngeal sac, becomes distended. 

According to the Dyaks, the only animal the 
Orang measures his strength with is the crocodile, 
who occasionally seizes him on his visits to the 
water side. But they say that the Orang is more 
than a match for his enemy, and beats him to 
death, or rips up his throat by pulling the jaws 
asunder! 

Much of what has been here stated was proba- 
bly derived by Dr. Miiller from the reports of his 
Dyak hunters; but a large male, four feet high, 
lived in captivity, under his observation, for a 
month, and receives a very bad character. 

Orang-Utan," Annals of Natnral Histonj. 1856. This 
statement, it will be observed, is qiiite in accordance with, 
that contained in the letter of the Resident Palm quoted 
above (p. 23). 



I THE ORANa. 55 

" He was a very wild beast/' says Mliller, " of 
prodigious strength, and false and wicked to the 
last degree. If any one approached he rose up 
slowly with a low growl, fixed his eyes in the direc- 
tion in which he meant to make his attack, 
slowly passed his hand between the bars of his 
cage, and then extending his long arm, gave a 
sudden grip — usually at the face." He never 
tried to bite (though Orangs will bite one an- 
other), his great weapons of offence and defence 
being his hands. 

His intelligence was very great; and Mliller re- 
marks that though the faculties of the Orang have 
been estimated too highly, yet Cuvier, had he seen 
this specimen, would not have considered its intelli- 
gence to be only a little higher than that of the dog. 

His hearing was very acute, but the sense of 
vision seemed to be less perfect. The under lip 
was the great organ of touch, and played a very 
important part in drinking, being thrust out like 
a trough, so as either to catch the falling rain, or 
to receive the contents of the half cocoa-nut shell 
full of water with which the Orang was supplied, 
and which, in drinking, he poured into the trough 
thus formed. 

In Borneo the Orang-Utan of the Malays goes 
by the name of " Mias " among the Dyaks,- who 
distinguish several kinds as Mias Pappan, or 
Zimo, Mias Kassu, and Mias Rambi. Whether 
these are distinct species, however, or whether they 



56 THE MAN-LIKE APES. i 

are mere races, and how far any of them are 
identical with the Snmatran Orang, as Mr. Wal- 
lace thinks the Mias Pappan to be, are problems 
which are at present undecided; and the variabil- 
ity of these great apes is so extensive, that the 
settlement of the question is a matter of great 
difficulty. Of the form called " Mias Pappan/' 
Mr. Wallace * observes, 

" It is known by its large size, and by the lateral ex- 
pansion of the face into fatty protuberances, or ridges, 
over the temporal muscles, which have been mis-termed 
callosities, as they are perfectly soft, smooth, and flexible. 
Five of this form, measured by me, varied only from 4 
feet 1 inch to 4 feet 2 inches in height, from the heel to 
the crown of the head, the girth of the body from 3 feet 
to 3 feet 7^ inches, and the extent of the outstretched 
arms from 7 feet 2 inches to 7 feet 6 inches; the width 
of the face from 10 to 13J inches. The colour and length 
of the hair varied in different individuals, and in dif- 
ferent parts of the same individual; some possessed a 
rudimentary nail on the great toe, others none at all ; but 
they otherwise present no external differences on which 
to establish even varieties of a species. 

" Yet, w hen we examine the crania of these indi- 
viduals, we find remarkable differences of form, propor- 
tion, and dimension, no two being exactly alike. The 
slope of the profile, and the projection of the muzzle, to- 
gether with the size of the cranium, offer differences as 
decided as those existing between the most strongly 
marked forms of the Caucasian and African crania in the 
human species. The orbits vary in width and height, the 

* On the Orang-Utan, or Mias of Borneo, Annals of 
Natural History, 1856. 



I THE ORANO. ' 57 

cranial ridge is either single or double, either much or 
little developed, and the zygomatic aperture varies con- 
siderably in size. This variation in the proportions of the 
crania enables us satisfactorily to explain the marked dif- 
fernce presented by the single-crested and double-crested 
skulls, which have been thought to prove the existence of 
two large species of Orang. The external surface of the 
skull varies considerably in size, as do also the zygomatic 
aperture and the temporal muscle; but they bear no ne- 
cessary relation to each other, a small muscle often exist- 
ing with a large cranial surface, and vice versa. Now, 
those skulls which have the largest and strongest jaws 
and the widest zygomatic aperture, have the muscles so 
large that they meet on the crown of the skull, and de- 
posit the bony ridge which separates them, and which is 
the highest in that which has the smallest cranial surface. 
In those which combine a large surface with compara- 
tively weak jaws, and small zygomatic aperture, the mus- 
cles, on each side, do not extend to the crown, a space of 
from 1 to 2 inches remaining between them, and along 
their margins small ridges are formed. Intermediate 
forms are found, in which the ridges meet only in the 
hinder part of the skull. The form and size of the ridges 
are therefore independent of age, being sometimes more 
strongly developed in the less aged animal. Professor 
Temminck states that the series of skulls in the Leyden 
Museum shows the same result." 

Mr. Wallace observed two male adult Orangs 
(Mias Kassu of the Dyaks), however, so very dif- 
ferent from any of these that he concludes them 
to be specifically distinct; they were respectively 
3 feet 8-J inches and 3 feet 9-| inches high, and 
possessed no sign of the cheek excrescences, but 
otherwise resembled the larger kinds. The skull 



58 THE MAN-LIKE APES. % 

lias no crest, but two bony ridges, IJ inches to 
2 inches apart, as in the Simla morio of Professor 
Owen. The teeth, however, are immense, equal- 
ling or surpassing those of the other species. The 
females of both these kinds, according to Mr. Wal- 
lace, are devoid of excrescences, and resemble the 
smaller males, but are shorter by IJ to 3 inches, 
and their canine teeth are comparatively small, 
subtruncated and dilated at the base, as in the 
so-called Simia morio, which is, in all probability, 
the skull of a female of the same species as the 
smaller males. Both males and females of this 
smaller species are distinguishable, according to 
Mr. Wallace, by the comparatively large size of the 
middle incisors of the upper jaw. 

So far as I am aware, no one has attempted to 
dispute the accuracy of the statements which I 
have just quoted regarding the habits of the two 
Asiatic man-like apes; and if true, they must be 
admitted as evidence, that such an Ape — 

Istly, May readily move along the ground in 
the erect, or semi-erect, position, and without di- 
rect support from its arms. 

2ndly, That it may possess an extremely loud 
voice, so loud as to be readily heard one or two 
miles, 

3rdly, That it may be capable of great vicious- 
ness and violence when irritated: and this is espe- 
cially true of adult males. 



I THE CHIMPANZEE. 59 

4thly, That it may build a nest to sleep in. 

Such being well established facts respecting 
the Asiatic Anthropoids, analogy alone might jus- 
tify us in expecting the African species to offer 
similar peculiarities, separately or combined; or, 
at any rate, would destroy the force of any at- 
tempted a priori argument against such direct 
testimony as might be adduced in favour of their 
existence. And, if the organization of any of the 
African Apes could be demonstrated to fit it better 
than either of its Asiatic allies for the erect posi- 
tion and for efficient attack, there would be still 
less reason for doubting its occasional adoption of 
the upright attitude or of aggressive proceedings. 

From the time of Tyson and Tulpius down- 
wards, the habits of the young Chimpanzee in 
a state of captivity have been abundantly reported 
and commented upon. But trustworthy evidence 
as to the manners and customs of adult anthro- 
poids of this species, in their native woods, was 
almost wanting up to the time of the publication 
of the paper by Dr. Savage, to which I have al- 
ready referred; containing notes of the observa- 
tions which he made, and of the information which 
he collected from sources which he considered 
trustworthy, while resident at Cape Palmas, at the 
north-western limit of the Bight of Benin. 

The adult Chimpanzees measured by Dr. Sav- 
age, never exceeded, though the males may almost 
attain, five feet in height. 



60 THE MAN-LIKE APES. i 

" When at rest the sitting posture is that generally 
assumed. They are sometimes seen standing and walk- 
ing, but when thus detected, they immediately take to all 
fours, and flee from the presence of the observer. Such is 
their organisation that they cannot stand erect, but lean 
forward. Hence they are seen, when standing, with the 
hands clasped over the occiput, or the lumbar region, 
which would seem necessary to balance or ease of posture. 

" The toes of the adult are strongly flexed and turned 
inwards, and cannot be perfectly straightened. In the 
attempt the skin gathers into thick folds on the back, 
showing that the full expansion of the foot, as is necessary 
in walking, is unnatural. The natural position is on all 
fours, the body anteriorly resting upon the knuckles. 
These are greatly enlarged, with the skin protuberant and 
thickened like the sole of the foot. 

" They are expert climbers, as one would suppose from 
their organisation. In their gambols they swing from 
limb to limb to a great distance, and leap with astonish- 
ing agility. It is not unusual to see the ' old folks ' (in 
the language of an observer) sitting under a tree regaling 
themselves with fruit and friendly chat, while their ' chil- 
dren ' are leaping around them, and swinging from tree 
to tree with boisterous merriment. 

"As seen here, they cannot be called gregarious, sel- 
dom more than five, or ten at most, being found together. 
It has been said, on good authority, that they occasionally 
assemble in large numbers, in gambols. My informant 
asserts that he saw once not less than fifty so engaged; 
hooting, screaming, and drumming with sticks upon old 
logs, which is done in the latter case with equal facility 
by the four extremities. They do not appear ever to act 
on the offensive, and seldom, if ever really, on the de- 
fensive. When about to be captured, they resist by throw- 
ing their arms about their opponent, and attempting to 
draw him into contact with their teeth." (Savage, I. c. 
p. 384.) 



I THE CHIMPANZEE. 61 

"With respect to this last point Dr. Savage is 
very explicit in another place: 

" Biting is their principal art of defence. I have seen 
one man who had been thus severely wounded in the 
feet. 

" The strong development of the canine teeth in the 
adult would seem to indicate a carnivorous propensity; 
but in no state save that of domestication do they mani- 
fest it. At first they reject flesh, but easily acquire a 
fondness for it. The canines are early developed, and evi- 
dently designed to act the important part of weapons of 
defence. When in contact with man almost the first 
effort of the animal is — to Mte. 

" They avoid the abodes of men, and build their habita- 
tions in trees. Their construction is more that of nests 
than huts, as they have been erroneously termed by some 
naturalists. They generally build not far above the 
ground. Branches or twigs are bent, or partly broken, 
and crossed, and the whole supported by the body of a 
limb or a crotch. Sometimes a nest will be found near 
the end of a strong leafy branch twenty or thirty feet 
from the ground. One I have lately seen that could not 
be less than forty feet, and more probably it was fifty. 
But this is an unusual height. 

" Their dwelling-place is not permanent, but changed 
in pursuit of food and solitude, according to the force of 
circumstances. We more often see them in elevated 
places; but this arises from the fact that the low grounds, 
being more favourable for the natives' rice-farms, are the 
oftener cleared, and hence are almost always wanting in 
suitable trees for their nests. ... It is seldom that more 
than one or two nests are seen upon the same tree, or in 
the same neighbourhood: five have been found, but it 
was an unusual circumstance." . . . 

" They are very filthy in their habits. ... It is a 



62 THE MAN-LIKE APES. i 

tradition with the natives generally here, that they were 
once members of their own tribe: that for their depraved 
habits they were expelled from all human society, and, 
that through an obstinate indulgence of their vile pro- 
pensities, they have degenerated into their present state 
and organisation. They are, however, eaten by them, and 
when cooked with the oil and pulp of the palm-nut con- 
sidered a highly palatable morsel. 

" They exhibit a remarkable degree of intelligence in 
their habits, and, on the part of the mother, much affec- 
tion for their young. The second female described was 
upon a tree when first discovered, mth her mate and two 
young ones (a male and a female). Her first impulse was 
to descend with great rapidity and make off into the 
thicket, with her mate and female offspring. The young 
male remaining behind, she soon returned to the rescue. 
She ascended and took him in her arms, at which moment 
she was shot, the ball passing through the fore-arm 
of the young one, on its way to the heart of the 
mother. . . . 

" In a recent case, the mother, when discovered, re- 
mained upon the tree ^^ath her offspring, watching in- 
tently the movements of the hunter. As he took aim, she 
motioned ^\'ith her hand, precisely in the manner of a hu- 
man being, to have him desist and go away. When the 
wound has not proved instantly fatal, they have been 
known to stop the flow of blood by pressing with the 
hand upon the part, and when this did not succeed, to 
apply leaves and grass. . . . When shot, they give a sud- 
den screech, not unlike that of a human being in sudden 
and acute distress." 

The ordinary voice of the Chimpanzee, how- 
ever, is affirmed to be hoarse, guttural, and not 
very loud, somewhat like " whoo-whoo/^ (I. c. p. 
365.) 



I THE GORILLA. 63 

The analogy of the Chimpanzee to the Orang, 
in its nest-building habit and in the mode of 
forming its nest, is exceedingly interesting; while, 
on the other hand, the activity of this ape, and 
its tendency to bite, are particulars in which it 
rather resembles the Gibbons. In extent of geo- 
graphical range, again, the Chimpanzees — which 
are found from Sierra Leone to Congo— remind 
one of the Gibbons, rather than of either of the 
other man-like apes; and it seems not unlikely 
that, as is the case with the Gibbons, there may be 
several species spread over the geographical area 
of the genus. 

The same excellent observer, from whom I 
have borrowed the preceding account of the habits 
of the adult Chimpanzee, published fifteen years 
ago,* an account of the Gokilla, which has, in 
its most essential points, been confirmed by subse- 
quent observers, and to which so very little has 
really been added, that in justice to Dr. Savage I 
give it almost in full. 

" It should be borne in mind that my account is based 
upon the statements of the aborigines of that region (the 
Gaboon). In this connection, it may also be proper for 
me to remark, that having been a missionary resident for 
several years, studying, from habitual intercourse, the 
African mind and character, I felt myself prepared to 
discriminate and decide upon the probability of their 
statements. Besides, being familiar with the history and 

* Notice of the external characters and habits of Trog- 
lodytes Gorilla. Boston Journal of Natural History, 

1847. 




Fig. 10.— The Gorilla, after Wolf. 



I THE GORILLA. 65 

habits of its interesting congener {Trog. nlger, Geoff. )> I 
was able to separate their accounts of the two animals 
which, having the same locality and a similarity of habit, 
are confounded in the minds of the mass, especially as but 
few — such as traders to the interior and huntsmen — have 
ever seen the animal in question. 

" The tribe from which our knowledge of the animal 
is derived, and whose territory forms its habitat, is the 
Mpongwe, occupying both banks of the River Gaboon, 
from its mouth to some fifty or sixty miles upward. . . . 

*' If the word ' Pongo ' be of African origin, it is proba- 
bly a corruption of the word Mpongwe, the name of the 
tiribe on the banks of the Gaboon, and hence applied to 
the region they inhabit. Their local name for the Chim- 
panzee is Enche-eico, as near as it can be Anglicised, from 
which the common term ' Jocko ' probably comes. The 
Mpongwe appellation for its new congener is Enge-ena, 
prolonging the sound of the first vowel, and slightly sound- 
ing the second. 

" The habitat of the Enge-ena is the interior of lower 
Guinea, whilst that of the Enche-eko is nearer the sea- 
board. 

" Its height is about five feet ; it is disproportionately 
broad across the shoulders, thickly covered with coarse 
black hair, which is said to be similar in its arrangement 
to that of the Enche-eko; with age it becomes gray, whicK 
fact has given rise to the report that both animals are 
seen of diff"erent colours. 

" Head. — The prominent features of the head are, the 
great width and elongation of the face, the depth of the 
molar region, the branches of the lower jaw being very 
deep and extending far backward, and the comparative 
smallness of the cranial portion; the eyes are very large, 
and said to be like those of the Enche-eko, a bright hazel ; 
nose broad and flat, slightly elevated towards the root; 
the muzzle broad, and prominent lips and chin, mth scat- 
tered gray hairs ; the under Up highly mobile, and capable 
169 



66 THE MAN-LIKE APES. 1 

of great elongation when the animal is enraged, then 
hanging over the chin; skin of the face and ears naked, 
and of a dark brown-, approaching to black. 

" The most remarkable feature of the head is a high 
ridge, or crest of hair, in the course of the sagittal suture, 
which meets posteriorly with a transverse ridge of the 
same, but less prominent, running round from the back 
of one ear to the other. The animal has the power of 
moving the scalp freely forward and back, and when en- 
raged is said to contract it strongly over the brow, thus 
bringing down the hairy ridge and pointing the hair for- 
ward, so as to present an indescribably ferocious aspect. 




Fig. 11.— Gorilla walking (after Wolf). 

"Neck short, thick, and hairy; chest and shoulders 
very broad, said to be fully double the size of the Ench6- 
ekos; arms very long, reaching some way below the knee 
■ — the fore-arm much the shortest; hands very large, the 
thumbs much larger than the fingers. . . . 

" The gait is shuffling ; the motion of the body, which 
is never upright as in man, but bent forward, is somewhat 
rolling, or from side to side. The arms being longer than 
the Chimpanzee, it does not stoop as much in walking; 
like that animal, it makes progression by thrusting its 



I THE GOEILLA. 67 

arms forward, resting the hands on the ground, and then 
giving the body a half jumping, half swinging motion be- 
tween them. In this act it is said not to flex the fingers, 
as does the Chimpanzee, resting on its knuckles, but to 
extend them, making a fulcrum of the hand. When it 
assumes the walking posture, to which it is said to be 
much inclined, it balances its huge body by flexing its 
arms upward. 

" They live in bands, but are not so numerous as the 
Chimpanzees; the females generally exceed the other sex 
in number. My informants all agree in the assertion that 
but one adult male is seen in a band; that when the 
young males grow up, a contest takes place for mastery, 
and the strongest, by killing and driving out the others, 
establishes himself as the head of the community." 

Dr. Savage repudiates the stories about the 
Gorillas carrying off women and vanquishing ele- 
phants and then adds — 

" Their dwellings, if they may be so called, are similar 
to those of the Chimpanzee, consisting simply of a few 
sticks and leafy branches, supported by the crotches and 
limbs of trees: they aflTord no shelter, and are occupied 
only at night. 

" They are exceedingly ferocious, and always offensive 
in their habits, never running from man, as does the 
Chimpanzee. They are objects of terror to the natives, 
and are never encountered by them except on the defen- 
sive. The few that have been captured were killed by 
elephant hunters and native traders, as they came sud- 
denly upon them while passing through the forests. 

" It is said that when the male is first seen he gives 
a terrific yell, that resounds far and wide through the 
forest, something like kh — ah! kh — ah! prolonged and 
shrill. His enormous jaws are widely opened at each ex- 
piration, his under lip hangs over the chin, and the hairy 



68 THE MAN-LIKE APES. i 

ridge and scalp are contracted upon the brow, presenting 
an aspect of indescribable ferocity. 

" The females and young, at the first cry, quickly dis- 
appear. He then approaches the enemy in great fury, 
pouring out his horrid cries in quick succession. The 
hunter awaits his approach with his gun extended; if 
his aim is not sure, he permits the animal to grasp the 
barrel, and as he carries it to his mouth (which is his 
habit) he fires. Should the gun fail to go off, the barrel 
(that of the ordinary musket, which is thin) is crushed 
between his teeth, and the encounter soon proves fatal to 
the hunter. 

" In the wild state, their habits are in general like 
those of the Troglodytes niger, building their nests loose- 
ly in trees, living on similar fruits, and changing their 
place of resort from force of circumstances." 

Dr. Savage^s observations were confirmed and 
supplemented by those of Mr. Ford, who communi- 
cated an interesting paper on the Gorilla to the 
Philadelphian Academy of Sciences, in 1853. 
With respect to the geographical distribution of 
this greatest of all the man-like Apes, Mr. Ford 
remarks : 

" This animal inhabits the range of mountains that 
traverse the interior of Guinea, from the Cameroon in 
the north, to Angola in the south, and about 100 miles 
inland, and called by the geographers Crystal Mountains. 
The limit to which this animal extends, either north or 
south, I am unable to define. But that limit is doubtless 
some distance north of this river [Gaboon]. I was able 
to certify myself of this fact in a late excursion to the 
head- waters of the Mooney (Danger) River, which comes 
into the sea some sixty miles from this place. I was in- 
formed (credibly, I think) that they were numerous 



I THE GORILLA. 69 

among the mountains in which that river rises, and far 
north of that. 

" In the south, this species extends to the Congo Eiver, 
as I am told by native traders who have visited the coast 
between the Gaboon and that river. Beyond that, I am 
not informed. This animal is only found at a distance 
from the coast in most cases, and, according to my best in- 
formation, approaches it nowhere so nearly as on the 
south side of this river, where they have been found 
within ten miles of the sea. This, however, is only of late 
occurrence- I am informed by some of the oldest Mpong- 
we men that formerly he was only found on the sources 
of the river, but that at present he may be found within 
half-a-day's walk of its mouth. Formerly he inhabited 
the mountainous ridge where Bushmen alone inhabited, 
but now he boldly approaches the Mpongwe plantations. 
This is doubtless the reason of the scarcity of informa- 
tion in years past, as the opportunities for receiving a 
knowledge of the animal have not been wanting; traders 
having for one hundred years frequented this river, and 
specimens, such as have been brought here within a year, 
could not have been exhibited without having attracted 
the attention of the most stupid." 

One specimen Mr. Ford examined weighed 
170 ibs., without the thoracic, or pelvic, viscera, 
and measured four feet four inches round the chest. 
This writer describes so minutely and graphically 
the onslaught of the Gorilla — though he does not 
for a moment pretend to have witnessed the scene 
— that I am tempted to give this part of his paper 
in full, for comparison with other narratives: 

" He always rises to his feet when making an attack, 
though he approaches his antagonist in a stooping pos- 
ture. 



70 THE MAN-LIKE APES. i 

" Though he never lies in wait, yet, when he hears, 
sees, or scents a man, he immediately utters his charac- 
teristic cry, prepares for an attack, and always acts on 
the offensive. The cry he utters resembles a grunt more 
than a growl, and is similar to the cry of the Chimpanzee, 
when irritated, but vastly louder. It is said to be audible 
at a great distance. His preparation consists in attend- 
ing the females and young ones, by whom he is usually 
accompanied, to a little distance. He, however, soon re- 
turns, with his crest erect and projecting forward, his 
nostrils dilated, and his under-lip thrown down, at the 
same time uttering his characteristic yell, designed, it 
would seem, to terrify his antagonist. Instantly, unless 
he is disabled by a well-directed shot, he makes an onset, 
and, striking his antagonist with the palm of his hands, 
or seizing him with a grasp from which there is no escape, 
he dashes him upon the ground, and lacerates him with 
his tusks. 

" He is said to seize a musket, and instantly crush the 

barrel between his teeth This animal's savage 

nature is very well shown by the implacable desperation 
of a young one that was brought here. It was taken 
very young, and kept four months, and many means were 
used to tame it; but it was incorrigible, so that it bit me 
an hour before it died." 

Mr. Ford discredits the house-building and 
elephant-driving stories, and says that no well- 
informed natives believe them. They are tales 
told to children. 

I might quote other testimony to a similar ef- 
fect, but, as it appears to me, less carefully weighed 
and sifted, from the letters of MM. Franquet and 
Gautier Laboullay, appended to the memoir of 
M. I. G. St. Hilaire, which I have already cited. 



I THE GORILLA. 71 

Bearing in mind what is known regarding the 
Orang and the Gibbon, the statements of Dr. 
Savage and Mr. Ford do not appear to me to be 
justly open to criticism on a 'priori grounds. The 
Gibbons, as we have seen, readily assume the erect 
postnre, bnt the Gorilla is far better fitted by its 
organization for that attitude than are the Gib- 
bons: if the laryngeal pjouches of the Gibbons, as 
is very likely, are important in giving volume 
to a voice which can be heard for half a league, 
the Gorilla, which has similar sacs, more largely 
developed, and whose bulk is fivefold that of a 
Gibbon, may well be audible for twice that dis- 
tance. If the Orang fights with its hands, the 
Gibbons and Chimpanzees with the teeth, the 
Gorilla may, probably enough, do either or both; 
nor is there anything to be said against either 
Chimpanzee or Gorilla building a nest, when it is 
proved that the Orang-Utan habitually performs 
that feat. 

With all this evidence, now ten to fifteen years 
old, before the world, it is not a little surprising 
that the assertions of a recent traveller, who, so 
far as the Gorilla is concerned, really does very 
little more than repeat, on his own authority, the 
statements of Savage and of Ford, should have met 
with so much and such bitter opposition. If sub- 
traction be made of what was known before, the 
sum and substance of what M. Du Chaillu has 
affirmed as a matter of his own observation 



72 THE MAN-LIKE APES. i 

respecting the Gorilla, is, that, in advancing to the 
attack, the great brute beats his chest with his 
fistSi I confess I see nothing very improbable, or 
very much worth disputing about, in this state- 
ment. 

With respect to the other man-like Apes of 
Africa, M. Du Chaillu tells us absolutely nothing, 
of his own knowledge, regarding the common 
Chimpanzee; but he informs us of a bald-headed 
species or variety, the nschiego mbouve, which 
builds itself a shelter, and of another rare kind 
with a comparatively small face, large facial angle, 
and peculiar note, resembling " Kooloo." 

As the Orang shelters itself with a rough 
coverlet of leaves, and the common Chimpanzee, 
according to that eminently trustworthy observer 
Dr. Savage, makes a sound like " Whoo-whoo," — 
the grounds of the summary repudiation with 
which M. Du Chaillu's statements on these mat- 
ters have been met are not obvious. 

If I have abstained from quoting M. Du 
Chaillu's work, then, it is not because I discern 
any inherent improbability in his assertions re- 
specting the man-like Apes; nor from any wish to 
throw suspicion on his veracity; but because, in 
my opinion, so long as his narrative remains in its 
present state of unexplained and apparently in- 
explicable confusion^ it has no claim to original au- 
thority respecting any subject whatsoever. 

It may be truth, but it is not evidence. 



African Camiihalism in the Sixteenth Century. 

In turning over Pigafetta's version of the narrative of 
Lopez, which I have quoted above, I came upon so curious 
and unexpected an anticipation, by some two centuries 
and a half, of one of the most startling parts of M. Du 
. Chaillu's narrative, that 1 cannot refrain from drawing 
attention to it in a note, although 1 must confess that the 
subject is not strictly relevant to the matter in hand. 

In the fifth chapter of the first book of the " De- 
scriptio," " Concerning the northern part of the King- 
dom of Congo and its boundaries," is mentioned a people 
whose king is called " Maniloango," and who live under 
the equator, and as far westward as Cape Lopez. This ap- 
pears to be the country now inhabited by the Ogobai and 
Bakalai according to M. Du Chaillu. — " Beyond these 
dwell another people called * Anziques,' of incredible feroc- 
ity, for they eat one another, sparing neither friends nor 
relations." 

These people are armed with small bows bound tightly 
round with snake skins, and strung with a reed or rush. 
Their arrows, short and slender, but made of hard wood, 
are shot with great rapidity. They have iron axes, the 
handles of which are bound round with snake skins, and 
swords with scabbards of the same material; for defen- 
sive armour they employ elephant hides. They cut their 
skins when young, so as to produce scars. " Their butch- 
ers' shops are filled with human flesh instead of that of 
oxen or sheep. For they eat the enemies whom they 

73 



74 



AFRICAN CANKCBALISM. 




Fig. 12. — Butcher's Shop of the Anziques Anno 1598. 

take in battle. They fatten, slay and devour their slaves 
also, unless they think they shall get a good price for 
them; and, moreover, sometimes for weariness of life or 
desire of glory (for they, think it a great thing and the 



I AFRICAN CANNIBALISM. ^^ 

sign of a generous soul to despise life), or for love of their 
rulers, offer themselves up for food." 

" There are indeed many cannibals, as in the Eastern 
Indies and in Brazil and elsewhere, but none such as 
these, since the others only eat their enemies, but these 
their own blood relations." 

The careful illustrators of Pigafetta have done their 
best to enable the reader to realize this account of the 
" Anziques," and the unexampled butcher's shop repre- 
sented in Fig. 12, is a facsimile of part of their Plate XII. 

M. Du Chaillu's account of the Fans accords most 
singularly with what Lopez here narrates of the Anziques. 
He speaks of their small crossbows and little arrows, of 
their axes and knives, " ingeniously sheathed in snake 
skins." " They tattoo themselves more than any other 
tribes I have met north of the equator." And all the 
world knows what M. Du Chaillu says of their cannibal- 
ism — " Presently we passed a woman who solved all 
doubt. She bore with her a piece of the thigh of a human 
body, just as we should go to market and carry thence a 
roast or steak." M. Du Chaillu's artist cannot generally 
be accused of any want of courage in embodying the state- 
ments of his author, and it is to be regretted that, with 
so good an excuse, he has not furnished us with a fitting 
companion to the sketch of the brothers De Bry. 



II. 

ON THE EELATIONS OF MAN TO THE 
LOWER ANIMALS. 

Multis videri poterit, majorem esse differentiam Simise et 
Hominis, quam diei et noctis; verum tamen hi, com- 
paratione instituta inter summos Europse Heroes et 
Hottentottes ad Caput bonse spei degentes, difiicillime 
sibi persuadebunt, has eosdem habere natales; vel si 
virginem nobilem aulicam, maxime comtam et hu- 
manissimam, conferre vellent cum homine sylvestri et 
sibi relicto, vix augurari possent, hunc et illam ejus- 
dem esse speeiei. — Linnwi Amcenitates Acad. " Anthro- 
pomorpha." 

The question of questions for mankind — the 
problem which underlies all others, and is more 
deeply interesting than any other — is the ascer- 
tainment of the place which Man occupies in na- 
ture and of his relations to the universe of things. 
Whence our race has come; what are the limits 
of our power over nature, and of nature's power 
over us; to what goal we are tending; are the 
problems which present themselves anew and 
with undiminished interest to every man born 

77 



78 MAN AND THE LOWER ANIMALS. ii 

into the world. Most of us, shrinking from the 
difficulties and dangers which beset the seeker 
after original answers to these riddles, are con- 
tented to ignore them altogether, or to smother 
the investigating spirit under the feather-bed of 
respected and respectable tradition. But, in every 
age, one or two restless spirits, blessed with that 
constructive genius, which can only build on a 
secure foundation, or cursed with the spirit of 
mere scepticism, are unable to follow in the well- 
worn and comfortable track of their forefathers 
and contemporaries, and unmindful of thorns and 
stumbling-blocks, strike out into paths of their 
own. The sceptics end in the infidelity which 
asserts the problem to be insoluble, or in the athe- 
ism which denies the existence of any orderly pro- 
gress and governance of things: the men of genius 
propound solutions which grow into systems of 
Theology or of Philosophy, or veiled in musical 
language which suggests more than it asserts, take 
the shape of the Poetry of an epoch. 

Each such answer to the great question, in- 
variably asserted by the followers of its pro- 
pounder, if not by himself, to be complete and 
final, remains in high authority and esteem, it 
may be for one century, or it may be for twenty: 
but, as invariably. Time proves each reply to have 
been a mere approximation to the truth — tolerable 
chiefly on account of the ignorance of those by 
whom it was accepted, and wholly intolerable 



II MENTAL ECDYSES OP MAN. Y9 

when tested by the larger knowledge of their suc- 
cessors. 

In a well-worn metaphor, a parallel is drawn 
between the life of man and the metamorphosis 
of the caterpillar into the butterfly; but the com- 
parison may be more just as well as more novel, if 
for its former term we take the mental progress 
of the race. History shows that the human mind, 
fed by constant accessions of knowledge, periodi- 
cally grows too large for its theoretical coverings, 
and bursts them asunder to appear in new habili- 
ments, as the feeding and growing grub, at 
intervals, casts its too narrow skin and assumes 
another, itself but temporary. Truly the imago 
state of Man seems to be terribly distant, but 
every moult is a step gained, and of such there 
have been many. 

Since the revival of learning, whereby the 
Western races of Europe were enabled to enter 
upon that progress towards true knowledge, which 
was commenced by the philosophers of Greece, 
but was almost arrested in subsequent long ages 
of intellectual stagnation, or, at most, gyration, 
the human larva has been feeding vigorously, and 
moulting in proportion. A skin of some dimension 
was cast in the 16th century, and another towards 
the end of the 18th, while, within the last fifty 
years, the extraordinary growth of every depart- 
ment of physical science has spread among us 
mental food of so nutritious and stimulating a 



80 MAN AND THE LOWER. ANIMALS. n 

character that a new ecdysis seems imminent. 
But this is a process not nnusually accompanied 
by many throes and some sickness and debility, or, 
it may be, by graver disturbances; so that every 
good citizen must feel bound to facilitate the pro- 
cess, and even if he have nothing but a scalpel to 
work withal, to ease the cracking integument to 
the best of his ability. 

In this duty lies my excuse for the publication 
of these essays. For it will be admitted that some 
knowledge of man^s position in the animate world 
is an indispensable preliminary to the proper un- 
derstanding of his relations to the universe; and 
this again resolves itself, in the long run, into an 
inquiry into the nature and the closeness of the ties 
which connect him with those singular creatures 
whose history * has been sketched in the preced- 
ing pages. 

The importance of such an inquiry is indeed 
intuitively manifest. Brought face to face with 
these blurred copies of himself, the least thought- 
ful of men is conscious of a certain shock, due per- 
haps, not so much to disgust at the aspect of 
what looks like an insulting caricature, as to the 
awakening of a sudden and profound mistrust of 
time-honoured theories and strongly-rooted preju- 
dices regarding his own position in nature, and 

* It will be understood that, in the preceding Essay, I 
have selected for notice from the vast mass of papers 
which have been written upon the man-like Apes, only 
those which seem to me to be of special moment. 



n DEVELOPMENT. 81 

his relations to the under-world of life; while that 
which remains a dim suspicion for the unthinking, 
becomes a vast argument, fraught with the deep- 
est consequences, for all who are acquainted with 
the recent progress of the anatomical and physio- 
logical sciences. 

I now propose briefly to unfold that argument, 
and to set forth, in a form intelligible to those 
who possess no special acquaintance with ana- 
tomical science, the chief facts upon which all con- 
clusions respecting the nature and the extent of 
the bonds which connect man with the brute world 
must be based: I shall then indicate the one im- 
mediate conclusion which, in my judgment, is 
justified by those facts, and I shall finally discuss 
the bearing of that conclusion upon the hypoth- 
eses which have been entertained respecting the 
Origin of Man. 

The facts to which I would first direct the 
reader's attention, though ignored by many of the 
professed instructors of the public mind, are easy 
of demonstration and are universally agreed to by 
men of science; while their significance is so great, 
that whoso has duly pondered over them will, I 
think, find little to startle him in the other reve- 
lations of Biology. I refer to those facts which 
have been made known by the study of Develop- 
ment. 

It is a truth of very wide, if not of universal, 
170 



82 MAN AND THE LOWER ANIMALS. n 

application, that every living creature commences 
its existence under a form different from^ and 
simpler than^ that .which it eventually attains. 

The oak is a more complex thing than the 
little rudimentary plant contained in the acorn; 
the caterpillar is more complex than the egg; the 
butterfly than the caterpillar; and each of these 
beings, in passing from its rudimentary to its 
perfect condition, runs through a series of changes, 
the sum of which is called its Development. In 
the higher animals these changes are extremely 
complicated; but, within the last half century, 
the labours of such men as Von Baer, Eathke, 
Eeichert, Bischoff, and Eemak, have almost com- 
pletely unravelled them, so that the successive 
stages of development which are exhibited by a 
Bog, for example, are now as well known to the 
embryologist as are the steps of the metanior- 
phosis of the silk-worm moth to the school-boy. 
It will be useful to consider with attention the 
nature and the order of the stages of canine de- 
velopment, as an example of the process in the 
higher animals generally. 

The dog, like all animals, save the very lowest 
(and further inquiries may not improbably remove 
the apparent exception), commences its existence 
as an egg: as a body which is, in every sense, as 
much an egg as that of a hen, but is devoid of 
that accumulation of nutritive matter which 
confers upon the bird^s egg its exceptional size and 



THE DOG'S EGG. 



83 



domestic utility; and wants the shelly which would 
not only be useless to an animal incubated within 
the body of its parent, but would cut it off from 
access to the source of that nutriment which the 
young creature requires, but which the minute 
egg of the mammal does not contain within itself. 




Fig. 13.— a. Egg of the Dog, with the vitelline mem- 
brane burst, so as to give exit to the yelk, the germinal 
vesicle {a), and its included spot (&). B. C. D. E. F. Suc- 
cessive changes of the yelk indicated in the text. After 
Bischoff. 

The Dog's egg is, in fact, a little spheroidal 
bag (Fig. 13), formed of a delicate transparent 
membrane called the vitelline memhrane, and about 
Yg-g-th to y^-g-th of an iuch in diameter. It con- 
tains a mass of viscid nutritive matter — the yelh 



84 MAN AND THE LOWER ANIMALS. ii 

— within which is enclosed a second much more 
delicate spheroidal bag, called the germinal vesicle 
(a). In this, lastly, lies a more solid rounded body, 
termed the germinal spot (h). 

The egg, or Ovum, is originally formed within 
a gland, from which, in due season, it becomes 
detached, and passes into the living chamber fitted 
for its protection and maintenance during the pro- 
tracted process of gestation. Here, when sub- 
jected to the required conditions, this minute and 
apparently insignificant particle of living matter 
becomes animated by a new and mysterious activ- 
ity. The germinal vesicle and spot cease to be 
discernible (their precise fate being one of the yet 
unsolved problems of embryology), but the yelk 
becomes circumferentially indented, as if an in- 
visible knife had been drawn round it, and thus 
appears divided into two hemispheres (Fig. 
13, C). 

By the repetition of this process in various 
planes, these hemispheres become subdivided, so 
that four segments are produced (D); and these, 
in like manner, divide and subdivide again, until 
the whole yelk is converted into a mass of 
granules, each of which consists of a minute 
spheroid of yelk-substance, inclosing a central 
particle, the so-called nucleus (F). Nature, by 
this process, has attained much the same result 
as that which a human artificer arrives at by his 
operations in a brick-field. She takes the rough 



II THE CELLULAR EMBRYO. 85 

plastic material of the yelk and breaks it up into 
well-shaped tolerably even-sized masses — ^handy 
for building up into any part of the living 
edifice. 

I^ext, the mass of organic bricks, or cells as 
they are technically called, thus formed, acquires 
an orderly arrangement, becoming converted into 
a hollow spheroid with double walls. Then, upon 
one side of this spheroid, appears a thickening, 
and, by and bye, in the centre of the area of thick- 
ening, a straight shallow groove (Fig. 14, A) 
marks the central line of the edifice which is to 
be raised, or, in other words, indicates the posi- 
tion of the middle line of the body of the future 
dog. The substance bounding the groove on each 
side next rises up into a fold, the rudiment of the 
side wall of that long cavity, which will eventu- 
ally lodge the spinal marrow and the brain; and 
in the floor of this chamber appears a solid cellu- 
lar cord, the so-called notochord. One end of the 
enclosed cavity dilates to form the head (Fig. 14, 
B), the other remains narrow, and eventually be- 
comes the tail; the side walls of the body are 
fashioned out of the downward continuation of 
the walls of the groove; and from them, by and 
bye, grow out little buds which, by degrees, as- 
sume the shape of limbs. Watching the fashion- 
ing process stage by stage, one is forcibly reininded 
of the modeller in clay. Every part, every organ, 
is at first, as it were pinched up rudely, and 



86 



MAN AND THE LOWER ANIMALS. 



n 



sketched out in the rough; then shaped more accu- 
rately; and only, at last, receives the touches 
which stamp its final character. 

Thus, at length, the young puppy assumes 
such a form as is shown in Fig. 14, C. In this 




Fig. 14. — ^A. Earliest rudiment of the Dog. B. Eudi- 
ment further advanced, showing the foundations of the 
head, tail, and vertebral column. C. The very young 
puppy, with attached ends of the yelk-sac and allantois, 
and invested in the amnion. 



condition is has a disproportionately large head, 
as dissimilar to that of a dog as the bud-like limbs 
are unlike his legs. 

The remains of the yelk, which have not yet 
been applied to the nutrition and growth of the 



n FCETAL APPENDAGES. 87 

young animal, are contained in a sac attached to 
the rudimentary intestine, and termed the yelk 
sac, or umbilical vesicle. Two membranous bags, 
intended to subserve respectively the protection 
and nutrition of the young creature, have been 
developed from the skin and from the under and 
hinder surface of the body; the former, the so- 
called amnion, is a sac filled with fluid, which 
invests the whole body of the embryo, and plays 
the part of a sort of water-bed for it; the other, 
termed the allantois, grows out, loaded with 
blood-vessels, from the ventral region, and eventu- 
ally applying itself to the walls of the cavity, in 
which the developing organism is contained, en- 
ables these vessels to become the channel by which 
the stream of nutriment, required to supply the 
wants of the offspring, is furnished to it by the 
parent. 

The structure which is developed by the inter- 
lacement of the vessels of the offspring with those 
of the parent, and by means of which the former 
is enabled to receive nourishment and to get rid 
of effete matters, is termed the Placenta. 

It would be tedious, and it is unnecessary for 
my present purpose, to trace the process of de- 
velopment further; suffice it to say, that, by a long 
and gradual series of changes, the rudiment here 
depicted and described, becomes a puppy, is born, 
and then, by still slower and less perceptible steps, 
passes into the adult Dog. 



88 MAN AND THE LOWER ANIMALS. ii 

There is not much apparent resemblance be- 
tween a barn-door Fowl and the Dog who protects 
the farm-yard. Nevertheless the student of de- 
velopment findS;, not only that the chick com- 
mences its existence as an egg, primarily identical, 
in all essential respects^ with that of the Dog, 
bnt that the yelk of this egg undergoes division 
— that the primitive groove arises, and that the 
contignons parts of the germ are fashioned, by 
precisely similar methods, into a young chick, 
which, at one stage of its existence, is so like the 
nascent Dog, that ordinary inspection would 
hardly distinguish the two. 

The history of the development of any other 
vertebrate animal. Lizard, Snake, Frog, or Fish, 
tells the same story. There is always, to begin 
with, an egg having the same essential structure 
as that of the Dog: — the yelk of that egg always 
undergoes division, or segmentation as it is often 
called: the ultimate products of that segmenta- 
tion constitute the building materials for the body 
of the young animal; and this is built up round a 
primitive groove, in the floor of which a notochord 
is developed. Furthermore, there is a period in 
which the young of all these animals resemble 
one another, not merely in outward form, but in 
all essentials of structure, so closely, that the dif- 
ferences between them are inconsiderable, while, 
in their subsequent course they diverge more and 



II DEVELOPMENT OF MAN. 89 

more widely from one another. And it is a general 
law, that, the more closely any animals resemble 
one another in adult structure, the longer and the 
more intimately do their embryos resemble one an- 
other: so that, for example, the embryos of a 
Snake and of a Lizard remain like one another 
longer than do those of a Snake and of a Bird; 
and the embryo of a Dog and of a Cat remain 
like one another for a far longer period than do 
those of a Dog and a Bird; or of a Dog and an 
Opossum; or even than those of a Dog and a 
Monkey. 

Thus the study of development affords a clear 
test of closeness of structural affinity, and one 
turns with impatience to inquire what results are 
yielded by the study of the development of Man. 
Is he something apart? Does he originate in a 
totally different way from Dog, Bird, Frog, and 
Fish, thus justifying those who assert him to have 
no place in nature and no real affinity with the 
lower world of animal life? Or does he originate 
in a similar germ, pass through the same slow and 
gradually progressive modifications, depend on 
the same contrivances for protection and nutri- 
tion, and finally enter the world by the help of the 
same mechanism? The reply is not doubtful for a 
moment, and has not been doubtful any time these 
thirty years. Without question, the mode of 
origin and the early stages of the development of 
man are identical with those of the animals im- 



90 



MAN AND THE LOWER ANIMALS. 



n 



mediately "below him in the scale: — ^without a 
doubt, in these respects, he is far nearer the Apes, 
than the Apes are to the Dog. . 

The Human ovum is about y^th of an inch 
in diameter, and might be described in the same 
terms as that of the Dog, so that I need only refer 




Fig. 15. — A. Human ovum (after Kolliker). a. ger- 
minal vesicle, h. germinal spot. B. A very early condi- 
tion of Man, with yelk-sac, allantois and amnion (origi- 
nal). C. A more advanced stage (after Kolliker), com- 
pare Fig. 14, C. 

to the figure illustrative (15 A) of its structure. 
It leaves the organ in which it is formed in a 
similar fashion and enters the organic chamber 
prepared for its reception in the same way, the 
conditions of its development being in all respects 
the same. It has not yet been possible (and only 
by some rare chance can it ever be possible) to 



n DEVELOPMENT OF MAN. 91 

study the human ovum in so early a develop- 
mental stage as that of yelk division, but there 
is every reason to conclude that the changes it 
undergoes are identical with those exhibited by 
the ova of other vertebrated animals; for the 
formative materials of which the rudimentary hu- 
man body is composed, in the earliest conditions 
in which it has been observed, are the same as 
those of other animals. Some of these earliest 
stages are figured above and, as will be seen, they 
are strictly comparable to the very early states of 
the Dog; the marvellous correspondence between 
the two which is kept up, even for some time, as 
development advances, becoming apparent by the 
simple comparison of the figures with those on 
page 86. 

Indeed, it is very long before the body of the 
young human being can be readily discriminated 
from that of the young puppy; but, at a tolerably 
early period, the two become distinguishable by 
the different form of their adjuncts, the yelk-sac 
and the allantois. The former, in the Dog, be- 
comes long and spindle-shaped, while in Man it 
remains spherical: the latter, in the Dog, attains 
an extremely large size, and the vascular processes 
which are developed from it and eventually give 
rise to the formation of the placenta (taking root, 
as it were, in the parental organism, so as to draw 
nourishment therefrom, as the root of a tree ex- 
tracts it from the soil) are arranged in an en- 



92 MAN AND THE LOWER ANIMALS. n 

circling zone, while in Man, the allantois remains 
comparatively small, and its vascular rootlets are 
eventually restricted to one disk-like spot. Hence, 
while the placenta of the Dog is -like a girdle, 
that of Man has the cake-like form, indicated by 
the name of the organ. 

But, exactly in those respects in which the 
developing Man differs from the Dog, he resem- 
bles the ape, which, like man, has a spheroidal 
yelk-sac and a discoidal, sometimes partially lobed, 
placenta. So that it is only quite in the later 
stages of development that the young human be- 
ing presents marked differences from the young 
ape, while the latter departs as much from the 
dog in its development, as the man does. 

Startling as the last assertion may appear to 
be, it is demonstrably true, and it alone appears 
to me sufficient to place beyond all doubt the 
structural unity of man with the rest of the ani- 
mal world, and more particularly and closely with 
the apes. 

Thus, identical in the physical processes by 
which he originates — identical in the early stages 
of his formation — ^identical in the mode of his 
nutrition before and after birth, with the animals 
which lie immediately below him in the scale — 
Man, if his adult and perfect structure be com- 
pared with theirs, exhibits, as might be expected, 
a marvellous likeness of organization. He resem- 



II THE CLASSIFICATION OF MAN. 93 

bles them as they resemble one another — he dif- 
fers from them as they differ from one another. 
— And;, though these differences and resemblances 
cannot be weighed and measured, their value may 
be readily estimated; the scale or standard of 
judgment, touching that value being afforded and 
expressed by the system of classification of ani- 
mals now current among zoologists. 

A careful study of the resemblances and dif- 
ferences presented by animals has, in fact, Jed 
naturalists to arrange them into groups, or 
assemblages, all the members of each group 
presenting a certain amount of definable resem- 
blance, and the number of points of similarity be- 
ing smaller as the group is larger and vice versa. 
Thus, all creatures which agree only in present- 
ing the few distinctive marks of animality form 
the Kingdom An^imalia. The numerous animals 
which agree only in possessing the special char- 
acters of Vertebrates form one Sub-kingdom of this 
Kingdom. Then the Sub-kingdom Vertebeata 
is subdivided into the five Classes, Fishes, Am- 
phibians, Eeptiles, Birds, and Mammals, and these 
into smaller groups called Orders; these into 
Families and Genera; while the last are finally 
broken up into the smallest assemblages, which 
are distinguished by the possession of constant, 
not-sexual, characters. These ultimate groups are 
Species. 

Every year tends to bring about a greater uni- 



I 

94 MAN AND THE LOWER ANIMALS. H 

formity of opinion tlironghout the zoological 
world as to the limits and characters of these 
groups, great and small. At present, for example, 
no one has the least doubt regarding the charac- 
ters of the classes Mammalia, Aves, or Eeptilia; 
nor does the question arise whether any thor- 
oughly well-known animal should be placed in 
one class or the other. Again, there is a very 
general agreement respecting the characters and 
limits of the orders of Mammals, and as to the 
animals which are structurally necessitated to 
take a place in one or another order. 

No one doubts, for example, that the Sloth 
and the Ant-eater, the Kangaroo and the Opos- 
sum, the Tiger and the Badger, the Tapir and 
the Ehinoceros, are respectively members of the 
same orders. These successive pairs of animals 
may, and some do, differ from one another im- 
mensely, in such matters as the proportions and 
structure of their limbs; the number of their 
dorsal and lumbar vertebr83; the adaptation of 
their frames to climbing, leaping, or running; the 
number and form of their teeth; and the char- 
acters of their skulls and of the contained brain. 
But, with all these differences, they are so closely 
connected in all the more important and funda- 
mental characters of their organization, and so 
distinctly separated by these same characters from 
other animals, that zoologists find it necessary to 
group them together as members of one order. 



II THE CLASSIFICATION OF MAN. 95 

And if any new animal were discovered, and were 
found to present no greater difference from the 
Kangaroo or from the Opossum, for example, than 
these animals do from one another, the zoologist 
wonld not only be logically compelled to rank it 
in the same order with these, but he would not 
think of doing otherwise. 

Bearing this obvious course of zoological rea- 
soning in mind, let us endeavour for a moment to 
disconnect our thinking selves from the mask of 
humanity; let us imagine ourselves scientific Sa- 
turnians, if you will, fairly acquainted with such 
animals as now inhabit the Earth, and employed 
in discussing the relations they bear to a new 
and singular " erect and featherless biped," which 
some enterprising traveller, overcoming the dif- 
ficulties of space and gravitation, has brought 
from that distant planet for our inspection, well 
preserved, may be, in a cask of rum. We should 
all, at once, agree upon placing him among the 
mammalian vertebrates; and his lower jaw, his 
molars, and his brain, would leave no room for 
doubting the systematic position of the new genus 
among those mammals, whose young are nour- 
ished during gestation by means of a placenta, or 
what are called the "placental mammals." 

Further, the most superficial study would at 
once convince us that, among the orders of 
placental mammals, neither the Whales, nor the 
hoofed creatures, nor the Sloths and Ant-eaters, 



96 MAN AND THE LOWER ANIMALS. ii 

nor the carnivorous Cats, Dogs, and Bears, still 
less the Eodent Eats and Eabbits, or the Insectiv- 
orous Moles and Hedgehogs, or the Bats, could 
claim our Homo, as one of themselves. 

There would remain then but one order for 
comparison, that of the Apes (using the word in 
its broadest sense), and the question for discussion 
would narrow itself to this — is Man so different 
from any of these Apes that he must form an 
order by himself? Or does he differ less from 
them than they differ from one another, and 
hence must take his place in the same order with 
them? 

Being happily free from all real, or imaginary, 
personal interest in the results of the inquiry thus 
set afoot, we should proceed to weigh the argu- 
ments on one side and on the other, with as much 
judicial calmness as if the question related to a 
new Opossum. We should endeavour to ascer- 
tain, without seeking either to magnify or dimin- 
ish them, all the characters by which our new 
Mammal differed from the Apes; and if we found 
that these were of less structural value than those 
which distinguish certain members of the Ape 
order from others universally admitted to be of 
the same order, we should undoubtedly place the 
newly discovered tellurian genus with them. 

I now proceed to detail the facts which seem 
to me to leave us no choice but to adopt the last- 
mentioned course. 



II CLASSIFICATION: GORILLA. 97 

It is quite certain that the Ape which most 
nearly approaches man, in the totaUty of its 
organisation, is either the Chimpanzee or the 
Gorilla; and as it makes no practical difference, 
for the purposes of my present argument, which 
is selected for comparison, on the one hand, with 
Man, and on the other hand, with the rest of the 
Primates,* I shall select the latter (so far as its 
organisation is known) — as a brute now so cele- 
brated in prose and verse, that all must have 
heard of him, and have formed some conception 
of his appearance. I shall take up as many of 
the most important points of difference between 
man and this remarkable creature, as the space 
at my disposal will allow me to discuss, a'nd the 
necessities of the argument demand; and I shall 
inquire into the value and magnitude of these 
differences, when placed side by side with those 
which separate the Gorilla from other animals of 
the same order. 

In the general proportions of the body and 
limbs there is a remarkable difference between 
the Gorilla and Man, which at once strikes the 
eye. The Gorilla^s brain-case is smaller, its trunk 
larger, its lower limbs shorter, its upper limbs 
longer in proportion than those of Man. 

I find that the vertebral column of a full-grown 

* We are not at present thoroughly acquainted with 
the brain of the Gorilla, and therefore, in discussing cere- 
bral characters, I shall take that of the Chimpanzee as 
my highest term among the Apes. 
171 



98 MAN AND THE LOWER ANIMALS. n 

Gorilla, in the Museum of the Eoyal College of 
Surgeons, measures 27 inches along its anterior 
curvature, from the upper edge of the atlas, or 
first vertebra of the neck, to the lower extremity 
of the sacrum; that the arm, without the hand, is 
31^ inches long; that the leg, without the foot, is 
26J inches long; that the hand is 9f inches long; 
the foot 11^ inches long. 

In other words, taking the length of the spinal 
column as 100, the arm equals 115, the leg 96, 
the hand 36, and the foot 41. 

In the skeleton of a male Bosjesman, in the 
same collection, the proportions, by the same meas- 
urement, to the spinal column, taken as 100, are — 
the arm 78, the leg 110, the hand 26, and the foot 
32. In a woman of the same race the arm is 
83, and the leg 120, the hand and foot remaining 
the same. In a European skeletoii I find the arm 
to be 80, the leg 117, the hand 26, the foot 35. 

Thus the leg is not so different as it looks at 
first sight, in its proportion to the spine in the 
Gorilla and in the Man — being very slightly 
shorter than the spine in the former, and between 
^3^ and ^ longer than the spine in the latter. The 
foot is longer and the hand much longer in the 
Gorilla; but the great difference is caused by the 
arms, which are very much longer than the spine 
in the Gorilla, very much shorter than the spine 
in the Man. 

The question now arises how are the other 



II GORILLA AND OTHER APES. 99 

Apes related to the Gorilla in these respects — 
taking the length of the spine, measured in the 
same way, at 100. In an adult Chimpanzee, the 
arm is only 96, the leg 90, the hand 43, the foot 39 
— so that the hand and the leg depart more from 
the human proportion and the arm less, while the 
foot is about the same as in the Gorilla. 

In the Orang, the arms are very much longer 
than in the Gorilla (122), while the legs are 
shorter (88); the foot is longer than the hand (52 
and 48), and both are much longer in proportion 
to the spine. 

In the other man-like Apes again, the Gibbons, 
these proportions are still further altered; the 
length of the arms being to that of the spinal col- 
umn as 19 to 11; while the legs are also a third 
longer than the spinal column, so as to be longer 
than in Man, instead of shorter. The hand is half 
as long as the spinal column, and the foot, shorter 
than the hand, is about -j^jths of the length of the 
spinal column. 

Thus Hylobates is as much longer in the arms 
than the Gorilla, as the Gorilla is longer in the 
arms than Man; while, on the other hand, it is 
as much longer in the legs than the Man, as the 
Man is longer in the legs than the Gorilla, so that 
it contains within itself the extremest deviations 
from the average length of both pairs of limbs.* 

*See the figures of the skeletons of four anthropoid 
apes and of man, drawn to scale, p. 76. 



100 MAK AND THE LOWER ANIMALS. n 

The Mandrill presents a middle condition, the 
arms and legs being nearly equal in lengthy and 
both being shorter than the spinal column; while 
hand and foot have nearly the same proportions to 
one another and to the spine, as in Man. 

In the Spider Monkey (Ateles) the leg is longer 
than the spine, and the arm than the leg; and, 
finally, in that remarkable Lemnrine form, the 
Indri {Liclianotus) , the leg is about as long as the 
spinal column, while the arm is not more than -i-J 
of its length; the hand having rather less and the 
foot rather more, than one third the length of the 
spinal column. 

These examples might be greatly mnltiplied, 
but they suffice to show that^ in whatever propor- 
tion of its limbs the Gorilla differs from Man, the 
other Apes depart still more widely from the Go- 
rilla and that, consequently, such differences of 
proportion can have no ordinal value. 

We may next consider the differences presented 
by the trunk, consisting of the vertebral column, 
or backbone, and the ribs and pelvis, or bony hip- 
basin, which are connected with it, in Man and in 
the Gorilla respectively. 

In Man, in consequence partly of the disposi- 
tion of the articular surfaces of the vertebrae, and 
largely of the elastic tension of some of the fibrous 
bands, or ligaments, the spinal column, as a whole, 
has an elegant S-like curvature, being convex for- 



H MAN AND GORILLA. IQl 

wards in the neck, concave in the back, convex in 
the loins, or lumbar region, and concave again in 
the sacral region; an arrangement which gives 
much elasticity to the whole backbone, and dimin- 
ishes the jar communicated to the spine, and 
through it to the head, by locomotion in the erect 
position. 

Furthermore, under ordinary circumstances, 
Man has seven vertebrae in his neck, which are 
called cervical; twelve succeed these, bearing ribs 
and forming the upper part of the back, whence 
they are termed dorsal; five lie in the loins, bear- 
ing no distinct, or free, ribs, and are called lumbar; 
j&ve, united together into a great bone, excavated 
in front, solidly wedged in between the hip bones, 
to form the back of the pelvis, and known by the 
name of the sacrum, succeed these; and finally, 
three or four little more or less movable bones, so 
small as to be insignificant, constitute the coccyx 
or rudimentary tail. 

In the Gorilla, the vertebral column is similar- 
ly divided into cervical, dorsal, lumbar, sacral, and 
coccygeal vertebra?, and the total number of cer- 
vical and dorsal vertebrae, taken together, is the 
same as in Man; but the development of a pair of 
ribs to the first lumbar vertebra, which is an ex- 
ceptional occurrence in Man, is the rule in the 
Gorilla; and hence, as lumbar are distinguished 
from dorsal vertebrae only by the presence or ab- 
sence of free ribs, the seventeen " dorso-lumbar " 



102 MAN AND THE LOWER ANIMALS. n 

vertebrse of the Gorilla are divided into thirteen 
dorsal and four lumbar, while in Man they are 
twelve dorsal and five lumbar. 

Not only, however, does Man occasionally pos- 
sess thirteen pair of ribs,* but the Gorilla some- 
times has fourteen pairs^ while an Orang-Utan 
skeleton in the Museum of the Royal College of 
Surgeons has twelve dorsal and five lumbar ver- 
tebrse, as in Man. Cuvier notes the same number 
in a Hylobates. On the other hand, among the 
lower Apes, man^ possess twelve dorsal and six or 
seven lumbar vertebrse; the Douroucouli has four- 
teen dorsal and eight lumbar, and a Lemur 
(Stenops tardigradus) has fifteen dorsal and nine 
lumbar vertebrse. 

The vertebral column of the Gorilla, as a whole, 
differs from that of Man in the less marked char- 
acter of its curves, especially in the slighter con- 
vexity of the lumbar region. E'evertheless, the 
curves are present, and are quite obvious in young, 
skeletons of the Gorilla and Chimpanzee which 
have been prepared without removal of the liga- 
ments. In young Orangs similarly preserved on 

* " More than once," says Peter Camper, " have I met 
with more than six lumbar vertebrae in man. . . . Once 1 
found thirteen ribs and four lumbar vertebrse." Fallopius 
noted thirteen pair of ribs and only four lumbar vertebrse ; 
and Eustachius once found eleven dorsal vertebrae and 
six lumbar vertebrse. — (Eurres de Pierre Camper, T. 1, 
p. 42. As Tyson states, his " Pygmie " had thirteen pair 
of ribs and five lumbar vertebrse. The question of the 
curves of the spinal column in the Apes requires further 
investigation. 



II GORILLA AND OTHER APES. 103 

the other hand, the spinal column is either 
straight, or even concave forwards, throughout the 
lumbar region. 

Whether we take these characters then, or such 
minor ones as those which are derivable from the 
proportional length of the spines of the cervical 
vertebrae, and the like, there is no doubt whatso- 
ever as to the marked difference between Man and 
the Gorilla; but there is as little, that equally 
marked differences, of the very same order, obtain 
between the Gorilla and the lower Apes. 

The Pelvis, or bony girdle of the hips, of Man 
is a strikingly human part of his organisation; the 
expanded haunch bones affording support for his 
viscera during his habitually erect posture, and 
giving space for the attachment of the great mus- 
cles which enable him to assume and to preserve 
that attitude. In these respects the pelvis of the 
Gorilla differs very considerably from his (Fig. 16). 
But go no lower than the Gibbon, and see how 
vastly more he differs from the Gorilla than the 
latter does from Man, even in this structure. Look 
at the fiat, narrow haunch bones — the long and 
narrow passage-^the coarse, outwardly curved, 
ischiatic prominences on which the Gibbon habitu- 
ally rests, and which are coated by the so-called 
" callosities,^' dense patches of skin, wholly absent 
in the Gorilla, in the Chimpanzee, and in the 
Orang, as in Man! 

In the lower Monkeys and in the Lemurs the 




GiMnn. 

Fig. 16. — Front and side views of the bony pelvis of 
Man, the Gorilla and Gibbon: reduced from drawings 
made from nature, of the same absolute length, by Mr. 
Waterhouse Hawkins. 



II GORILLA AND MAN: SKULL. 105 

difference becomes more striking still, the pelvis 
acquiring an altogether quadrupedal character. 

But now let us turn to a nobler and more 
characteristic organ — that by which the human 
frame seems to be, and indeed is, so strongly dis- 
tinguished from all others, — I mean the skull. 
The differences between a Gorilla's skull and a 
Man's are truly immense (Fig. 17). In the former, 
the face, formed largely by the massive jaw-bones, 
predominates over the brain-case, or cranium 
proper: in the latter, the proportions of the two 
are reversed. In the Man, the occipital foramen, 
through which passes the great nervous cord con- 
necting the brain with the nerves of the body, is 
placed just behind the centre of the base of the 
skull, which thus becomes evenly balanced in the 
erect posture; in the Gorilla, it lies in the posterior 
third of that base. In the Man, the surface of the 
skull is comparatively smooth, and the supraciliary 
ridges or brow prominences usually project but 
little — while, in the Gorilla, vast crests are de- 
veloped upon the skull, and the brow ridges over- 
hang the cavernous orbits, like great penthouses. 

Sections of the skulls, however, show that some 
of the apparent defects of the Gorilla's cranium 
arise, in fact, not so much from deficiency of brain- 
case as from excessive development of the parts of 
the face. The cranial cavity is not ill-shaped, and 
the forehead is not truly flattened or very retreat- 
ing, its really well-formed curve being simply dis- 



106 MAN AND THE LOWER ANIMALS. n 

guised by the mass of bone whieli is built up 
against it (Fig. 17). 

But the roofs of the orbits rise more obliquely 
into the cranial cavity, thus diminishing the space 
for the lower part of the anterior lobes of the 
brain, and the absolute capacity of the cranium 
is far less than that of Man. So far as I am aware, 
no human cranium belonging to an adult man 
has yet been observed with a less cubical capacity 
than 62 cubic inches, the smallest cranium ob- 
served in any race of men by Morton, measuring 
63 cubic inches; while, on the other hand, the most 
capacious Gorilla skull yet measured has a content 
of not more than 31-J cubic inches. Let us assume, 
for simplicity's sake, that the lowest Man's skull 
has twice the capacity of that of the highest 
Gorilla.* 

* It has been affirmed that Hindoo crania sometimes 
contain as little as 27 ounces of water, which would give 
a capacity of about 46 cubic inches. The minimum capac- 
ity which I have assumed above, however, is based upon 
the valuable tables published by Professor R. Wagner in 
his Vorstiidien zu einer iDissenschaftlichen MorpJiologie 
und Physiologie des menscJilichen GeJirins. As the result 
of the careful weighing of more than 900 human brains, 
Professor Wagner states that one-half weighed between 
1200 and 1400 grammes, and that about two -ninths, con- 
sisting for the most part of male brains, exceed 1400 
grammes. The lightest brain of an adult male, with 
sound mental faculties, recorded by Wagner, weighed 
1020 grammes. As a gramme equals 15.4 grains, and a 
cubic inch of Avater contains 252.4 grains, this is equivalent 
to 62 cubic inches of water; so that as brain is heavier 
than water, we are perfectly safe against erring on the 
side of diminution in taking this as the smallest capacity 
of any adult male human brain. The only adult male 



n CKANIAL CAPACITIES. 107 

No doubt, this is a very striking difference, but 
it loses much of its apparent systematic value, 
when viewed by the light of certain other equally 
indubitable facts respecting cranial capacities. 

The first of these is, that the difference in the 
volume of the cranial cavity of different races of 
mankind is far greater, absolutely, than that be- 
tween the lowest Man and the highest Ape, while, 
relatively, it is about the same. For the largest 
human skull measured by Morton contained 114 
cubic inches, that is to say, had very nearly double 
the capacity of the smallest; while its absolute pre- 
ponderance, of 52 cubic inches — ^is far greater 
than that by which the lowest adult male human 
cranium surpasses the largest of the Gorillas 
(62—341 = 27^). Secondly, the adult crania of 
Gorillas which have as yet been measured differ 
among themselves by nearly one-third, the maxi- 
mum capacity being 34.5 cubic inches, the mini- 
mum 24 cubic inches; and^ thirdly, after making 

brain, weighing as little as 970 grammes, is that of an 
idiot; but the brain of an adult woman, against the 
soundness of whose faculties nothing appears, weighed as 
little as 907 grammes (55.3 cubic inches of water) ; and 
Held gives an adult female brain of still smaller capacity. 
The lieaviest brain (1872 grammes, or about 115 cubic 
inches) was, however, that of a woman; next to it comes 
the brain of Cuvier (1861 grammes), then Byron (1807 
grammes), and then an insane person (1783 grammes). 
The lightest adult brain recorded (720 grammes) was that 
of an idiotic female. The brains of five children, four 
years old, weighed between 1275 -and 992 grammes. So 
that it may be safely said, that an average European child 
of four years old has a brain twice as large as that of an 
adult Gorilla. 



108 MAN AND THE LOWER ANIMALS. n 

all due allowance for difference of size; the cranial 
capacities of some of the lower Apes fall nearly as 
much, relatively, below those of the higher Apes 
as the latter fall below Man. 

Thus, even in the important matter of cranial 
capacity, Men differ more widely from one an- 
other than they do from the Apes; while the low- 
est Apes differ as much, in proportion, from the 
highest, as the latter does from Man. The last 
proposition is still better illustrated by the study 
of the modifications which other parts of the 
cranium undergo in the Simian series. 

It is the large proportional size of the facial 
bones and the great projection of the jaws which 
confer upon the Gorilla's skull its small facial 
angle and brutal character. 

But if we consider the proportional size of the 
facial bones to the skull pro;;;er only, the little 
ChrysotJirix (Fig. 17) differs very widely from the 
Gorilla, and, in the same way, as Man does; while 
the Baboons (Cynocephalus, Fig. 17) exaggerate 
the gross proportions of the muzzle of the great 
Anthropoid, so that its visage looks mild and hu- 
man by comparison with theirs. The difference 
between the Gorilla and the Baboon is even greater 
than it appears at first sight; for the great facial 
mass of the former is largely due to a downward 
development of the jaws; an essentially human 
character, superadded upon that almost purely 
forward, essentially brutal, development of the 



AXJSTHAXilAN; 



CHRYS OTHRIX, 



aORILXiA.. 




CYNOCEPHALUS. 



MXCETES. 



liEiklXJR. 



Fig 17.— Sections of the skulls of Man and various 
Apes, drawn so as to give the cerebral cavity the same 



110 MAN AND THE LOWER ANIMALS. ii 

length in eaeli case, thereby displaying the varying pro- 
portions of the facial bones. The line h indicates the 
plane of the tentorium, which separates the cerebrum 
from the cerebellum; d, the axis of the occipital outlet of 
the skull. The extent of cerebral cavity behind c, which 
is a perpendicular erected on & at the point where the ten- 
torium is attached posteriorly, indicates the degree to 
which the cerebrum overlaps the cerebellum — the space 
occupied by which is roughly indicated by the dark shad- 
ing. In comparing these diagrams, it must be recollected, 
that figures on so small a scale as these- simply exemplify 
the statements in the text, the proof of which is to be 
found in the objects themselves. 

same parts which characterises the Baboon, and 
yet more remarkably distinguishes the Lemur. 

Similarly, the occipital foramen of Mycetes 
(Fig. 17), and still more of the Lemurs, is situated 
completely in the posterior face of the skull, or as 
much further back than that of the Gorilla, as 
that of the Gorilla is further back than that of 
Man; while, as if to render patent the futility of 
the attempt to base any broad classificatory distinc- 
tion on such a character, the same group of Platy- 
rhine, or American monkeys, to which the Mycetes 
belongs, contains the Clirysothrix, whose occipital 
foramen is situated far more forward than in any 
other ape, and nearly approaches the position it 
holds in Man. 

Again, the Orang's skull is as devoid of exces- 
sively developed supraciliary prominences as a 
Man's, though some varieties exhibit great crests 
elsewhere (See p. 25); and in some of the Cebine 
apes and in the CJirysothrix, the cranium is as 
smooth and rounded as that of Man himself. 



n TEETH: MEN AND APES. HI 

What is true of these leading characteristics of 
the skull, holds good, as may be imagined, of all 
minor features; so that for every constant differ- 
ence between the Gorilla's skull and the Man's a 
similar constant difference of the same order (that 
is to say, consisting in excess or defect of the same 
quality) may be found between the Gorilla's skull 
and that of some other ape. So that, for the skull, 
no less than for the skeleton in general, the propo- 
sition holds good, that the differences between Man 
and the Gorilla are of smaller value than those be- 
tween the Gorilla and some other Apes. 

In connection with the skull, I may speak of 
the teeth — organs which have a peculiar classifi- 
catory value, and whose resemblances and differ- 
ences of number, form, and succession, taken as a 
whole, are usually regarded as more trustworthy 
indicators of affinity than any others. 

Man is provided with two sets of teeth — milk 
teeth and permanent teeth. The former consist 
of four incisors, or cutting teeth; two canines, or 
eye-teeth; and four molars or grinders, in each jaw, 
making twenty in all. The latter (Fig 18) com- 
prise four incisors, two canines, four small grinders, 
called premolars or false molars, and six large 
grinders, or true molars in each jaw — making 
thirty-two in all. The internal incisors are larger 
than the external pair, in the upper jaw, smaller 
than the external pair, in the lower jaw. The 



112 MAN AND THE LOWER ANIMALS. n 

crowns of the upper molars exhibit four cusps, or 
blunt-pointed elevations, and a ridge crosses the 
crown obliquely, from the inner, anterior cusp to 
the outer, posterior cusp (Fig. 18 m"). The an- 
terior lower molars have five cusps, three external 
and two internal. The premolars have two cusps, 
one internal and one external, of which the outer 
is the higher. 

In all these respects the dentition of the Go- 
rilla may be described in the same terms as that of 
Man; but in other matters it exhibits many and 
important differences (Fig. 18). 

Thus the teeth of man constitute a regular and 
even series — without any break and without any 
marked projection of one tooth above the level of 
the rest; a peculiarity which, as Cuvier long ago 
showed, is shared by no other mammal save one — 
as different a creature from man as can well be 
imagined — namely, the long extinct Anoplotheri- 
um. The teeth of the Gorilla, on the contrary, 
exhibit a break, or interval, termed the diastema, 
in both jaws: in front of the eye-tooth, or between 
it and the outer incisor, in the upper jaw; behind 
the eye-tooth, or between it and the front false 
molar, in the lower jaw. Into this break in the 
series, in each jaw, fits the canine of the opposite 
jaw; the size of the eye-tooth in the Gorilla being 
so great that it projects, like a tusk, far beyond 
the general level of the other teeth. The roots of 
the false molar teeth of the Gorilla, again, are 



Man, 



Gcrilla. 




X2 



Clieivcmys, 



Fig. 18. — Lateral views, of the same length, of th 
upper jaws of various Primates, i, incisors j c, canines 
173 



114 MAN AND THE LOWER ANIMALS. ii 

pm, premolars; m, molars. A line is drawn through the 
first molar of Man, Gorilla, Gynocephahis, and Cebus, 
and the grinding surface of the second molar is shown in 
each, its anterior and internal angle being just above the 
m of nf. 

more complex than in Man, and the proportional 
size of the molars is different. The Gorilla has the 
crown of the hindmost grinder of the lower jaw 
more complex, and the order of eruption of the 
permanent teeth is different; the permanent ca- 
nines making their appearance before the second 
and third molars in Man, and after them in the 
Gorilla. 

Thus, while the teeth of the Gorilla closely 
resemble those of Man in number, kind, and in 
the general pattern of their crowns, they exhibit 
marked differences from those of Man in secondary 
respects, such as relative size, number of fangs, 
and order of appearance. 

But, if the teeth of the Gorilla be compared 
with those of an Ape, no further removed from it 
than a Cynoceplialus, or Baboon, it will be found 
that differences and resemblances of the same 
order are easily observable; but that many of the 
points in which the Gorilla resembles Man are 
those in which it differs from the Baboon; while 
various respects in which it differs from Man are 
exaggerated in the Cynoceplialus. The number 
and the nature of the teeth remain the same in 
the Baboon as in the Gorilla and in Man. But 
the pattern of the Baboon's upper molars is quite 



II MAN AND APES: TEETH. 115 

different from that described above (Fig. 18), the 
canines are proportionally longer and more knife- 
like; the anterior premolar in the lower jaw is 
specially modified; the posterior molar of the lower 
jaw is still larger and more complex than in the 
Gorilla. 

Passing from the old-world Apes to those of 
the new world, we meet with a change of much 
greater importance than any of these. In such a 
genus as Cehus, for example (Fig. 18), it will be 
found that while in some secondary points, such 
as the projection of the canines and the diastema, 
the resemblance to the great ape is preserved; in 
other and most important respects, the dentition 
is extremely different. Instead of 20 teeth in the 
milk set, there are 24: instead of 32 teeth in the 
permanent set, there are 36, the false molars being 
increased from eight to twelve. And in form, the 
crowns of the molars are very unlike those of the 
Gorilla, and differ far more widely from the human 
pattern. 

The Marmosets, on the other hand, exhibit the 
same number of teeth as Man and the Gorilla; but, 
notwithstanding this, their dentition is very dif- 
ferent, for they have four more false molars, like 
the other American monkeys — but as they have 
four fewer true molars, the total remains the same. 
And passing from the American apes to the 
Lemurs, the dentition becomes still more com- 
pletely and essentially different from that of the 



116 MAN AND THE LOWER ANIMALS. n 

Gorilla. The incisors begin to vary both in num- 
ber and in form. The molars acquire, more and 
more, a many-pointed, insectivorous character, and 
in one Genns, the Aye- Aye (Cheiromys), the ca- 
nines disappear, and the teeth completely simulate 
those of a Eodent (Fig. 18). 

Hence it is obvious that, greatly as the denti- 
tion of the highest Ape differs from that of Man, 
it differs far more widely from that of the lower 
and lowest Apes. 

Whatever part of the animal fabric — ^whatever 
series of muscles, whatever viscera might be se- 
lected for comparison — the result would be the 
same — the lower Apes and the Gorilla would dif- 
fer more than the Gorilla and the Man. I can- 
not attempt in this place to follow out all these 
comparisons in detail, and indeed it is unnecessary 
I should do so. But certain real, or supposed, 
structural distinctions between man and the apes 
remain, upon which so much stress has been laid, 
that they require careful consideration, in order 
that the true value may be assigned to those which 
are real, and the emptiness of those which are 
fictitious may be exposed. I refer to the char- 
acters of the hand, the foot, and the brain. 

Man has been defined as the only animal pos- 
sessed of two hands terminating his fore limbs, 
and of two feet ending his hind limbs, while it has 
been said that all the apes possess four hands; and 



II MAN AND APES: HAND AND BRAIN. 117 

he has heen affirmed to differ fundamentally from 
all the apes in the characters of his brain, which 
alone, it has been strangely asserted and reas- 
serted, exhibits the structures known to anatomists 
as the posterior lobe, the posterior cornu of the 
lateral ventricle, and the hippocampus minor. 

That the former proposition should have 
gained general acceptance is not surprising — in- 
deed, at first sight, appearances are much in its 
favour: but, as for the second, one can only admire 
the surpassing courage of its enunciator, seeing 
that it is an innovation which is not only opposed 
to generally and justly accepted doctrines, but 
which is directly negatived by the testimony of all 
original inquirers, who have specially investigated 
the matter: and that it neither has been, nor can 
be, supported by a single anatomical preparation. 
It would, in fact, be unworthy of serious refutation, 
except for the general and natural belief that de- 
liberate and reiterated assertions must have some 
foundation. 

Before we can discuss the first point with ad- 
vantage we must consider with some attention, 
and compare together, the structure of the human 
hand and that of the human foot, so that we may 
have distinct and clear ideas of what constitutes a 
hand and what a foot. 

The external form of the human hand is famil- 
iar enough to every one. It consists of a stout 



118 MAN AND THE LOWER ANIMALS. n 

wrist followed by a broad palm, formed of flesh, 
and tendons, and skin, binding together four bones, 
and dividing into four long and flexible digits, or 
fingers, each of which bears on the back of its last 
joint a broad and flattened nail. The longest cleft 
between any two digits is rather less than half as 
long as the hand. From the onter side of the 
base of the palm a stent digit goes ofl, having 
only two joints instead of three; so short, that it 
only reaches to a little beyond the middle of the 
first joint of the finger next it; and further re- 
markable by its great mobility, in consequence of 
which it can be directed outwards, almost at a 
right angle to the rest. This digit is called the 
" pollex," or thumb; and, like the others, it bears 
a flat nail upon the back of its terminal joint. In 
consequence of the proportions and mobility of the 
thumb, it is what is termed " opposable "; in other 
words, its extremity can, with the greatest ease, 
be brought into contact with the extremities of 
any of the fingers; a property upon which the pos- 
sibility of our carrying into effect the conceptions 
of the mind so largely depends. 

The external form of the foot differs widely 
from that of the hand; and yet, when closely com- 
pared, the two present some singular resemblances. 
Thus the ankle corresponds in a manner with the 
wrist; the sole with the palm; the toes with the 
fingers; the great toe with the thumb. But the 
toes, or digits of the foot, are far shorter in pro- 



II MAN AND APES: HAND AND FOOT. 119 

portion than the digits of the hand, and are less 
moveable, the want of mobility being most strik- 
ing in the great toe — which, again, is very much 
larger in proportion to the other toes than the 
thumb to the fingers. In considering this point, 
however, it must not be forgotten that the civilized 
great toe, confined and cramped from childhood 
npM^ards, is seen to a great disadvantage, and that 
in uncivilized and barefooted people it retains a 
great amount of mobility, and even some sort of 
opposability. The Chinese boatmen are said to be 
able to pull an oar; the artisans of Bengal to weave, 
and the Carajas to steal fishhooks by its help; 
though, after all, it must be recollected that the 
structure of its joints and the arrangement of its 
bones, necessarily render its prehensile action far 
less perfect than that of the thumb. 

But to gain a precise conception of the re- 
semblances and differences of the hand and foot, 
and of the distinctive characters of each, we must 
look below the skin, and compare the bony frame- 
work and its motor apparatus in each (Fig. 19). 

The skeleton of the hand exhibits, in the region 
which we term the wrist, and which is technically 
called the carpus — two rows of closely fitted polyg- 
onal bones, four in each row, which are tolerably 
equal in size. The bones of the first row with the 
bones of the forearm, form the wrist joint, and are 
arranged side by side, no one greatly exceeding or 
overlapping the rest. 




Mana. 



Feet, 



!FiG. 19. — The skeleton of the Hand and Foot of Man 
reduced from Dr. Carter's drawings in Gray's Anatomy. 
The hand is drawn to a larger scale than the foot. The 
line a a in the hand indicates the boundary between the 
carpus and the metacarpus ; 6 6 that between the latter 
and the proximal phalanges ; c c marks the ends of the 
distal phalanges. The line a' a' in the foot indicates the 
boundary between the tarsus and metatarsus ; V V marks 
that between the metatarsus and the proximal phalanges ; 
and c' c' bounds the ends of the distal phalanges ; ca, the 
calcaneum; as, the astragalus; sc, the scaphoid bone in 
the tarsus. 



II MAN AND APES: HAND AND FOOT. 121 

Three of the bones of the second row of the 
carpus bear the four long bones which support the 
palm of the hand. The fifth bone of the same 
character is articulated in a much more free and 
moveable manner than the others, with its carpal 
bone, and forms the base of the thumb. These 
are called metacarpal bones, and they carry the 
phalanges or bones of the digits, of which there 
are two in the thumb, and three in each of the 
fingers. 

The skeleton of the foot is very like that of the 
hand in some respects. Thus there are three 
phalanges in each of the lesser toes, and only two 
in the great toe, which answers to the thumb. 
There is a long bone, termed metatarsal, answering 
to the metacarpal, for each digit; and the tarsus 
which corresponds with the carpus, presents four 
short polygonal bones in a row, which correspond 
very closely with the four carpal bones of the sec- 
ond row of the hand. In other respects the foot 
differs very widely from the hand. Thus the great 
toe is the longest digit but one; and its metatarsal 
is far less moveably articulated with the tarsus 
than the metacarpal of the thumb with the car- 
pus. But a far more important distinction lies in 
the fact that, instead of four more tarsal bones 
there are only three; and, that these three are not 
arranged side by side, or in one row. One of them, 
the OS calcis or heel bone (ca), lies externally, and 
sends back the large projecting heel; another, the 



122 MAN AND THE LOWER ANIMALS. ii 

astragalus {as)^ rests on this by one face, and by 
another, forms, with the bones of the leg, the 
ankle joint; while a third face, directed forwards, 
is separated from the three inner tarsal bones of 
the row next the metatarsus by a bone called the 
scaphoid (sc). 

Thus there is a fundamental difference in the 
structure of the foot and the hand, observable 
when the carpus and the tarsus are contrasted: 
and there are differences of degree noticeable when 
the proportions and the mobility of the metacar- 
pals and metatarsals, with their respective digits, 
are compared together. 

The same two classes of differences become 
obvious when the muscles of the hand are com- 
pared with those of the foot. 

Three principal sets of muscles, called " flex- 
ors,'' bend the fingers and thumb, as in clench- 
ing the fist, and three sets, — the extensors — ex- 
tend them, as in straightening the fingers. These 
muscles are all ^^ long muscles "; that it to say, 
the fleshy part of each, lying in and being fixed to 
the bones of the arm, is, at the other end, con- 
tinued into tendons, or rounded cords, which pass 
into the hand, and are ultimately fixed to the 
bones which are to be moved. Thus, when the fin- 
gers are bent, the fleshy parts of the flexors of the 
fingers, placed in the arm, contract, in virtue of 
their peculiar endowment as muscles; and pulling 
the tendinous cords, connecting with their ends. 



n MAN AND APES: HAND AND FOOT. 123 

cause them to pull down the bones of the fingers 
towards the palm. 

Not only are the principal flexors of the fingers 
and of the thumb long muscles, but they remain 
quite distinct from one another throughout their 
whole length. 

In the foot, there are also three principal flexor 
muscles of the digits or toes, and three principal 
extensors; but one extensor and one flexor are 
short muscles; that is to say, their fleshy parts are 
not situated in the leg (which corresponds with 
the arm), but in the back and in the sole of the foot 
— regions which correspond with the back and the 
palm of the hand. 

Again, the tendons of the long flexor of the 
toes, and of the long flexor of the great toe, when 
they reach the sole of the foot, do not remain dis- 
tinct from one another, as the flexors in the palm 
of the hand do, but they become united and com- 
mingled in a very curious manner — while their 
united tendons receive an accessory muscle con- 
nected with the heel-bone. 

But perhaps the most absolutely distinctive 
character about the muscles of the foot is the 
existence of what is termed the peronceus longus, 
a long muscle fixed to the outer bone of the 
leg, and sending its tendon to the outer ankle, be- 
hind and below which it passes, and then crosses 
the foot obliquely to be attached to the base of 
the great toe. No muscle in the hand exactly 



124: MAN AND THE LOWER ANIMALS. n 

corresponds with this, which is eminently a foot 
muscle. 

To resume — the foot of man is distinguished 
from his hand by the following absolute anatomi- 
cal differences: — 

1. By the arrangement of the tarsal bones. 

2. By having a short flexor and a short ex- 

tensor muscle of the digits. 

3. By possessing the muscle termed peronceus 

longus. 
And if we desire to ascertain whether the ter- 
minal division of a limb, in other Primates, is to 
be called a foot or a hand, it is by the presence or 
absence of these characters that we must be 
guided, and not by the mere proportions and 
greater or lesser mobility of the great toe, which 
may vary indefinitely without any fundamental 
alteration in the structure of the foot. 

Keeping these considerations in mind, let us 
now turn to the limbs of the Gorilla. The ter- 
minal division of the fore limb presents no diffi- 
culty — bone for bone and muscle for muscle, are 
found to be arranged essentially as in man, or with 
such minor differences as are found as varieties in 
man. The Gorilla's hand is clumsier, heavier, and 
has a thumb somewhat shorter in proportion than 
that of man; but no one has ever doubted it being 
a true hand. 

At first sight, the termination of the hind limb 



II THE PEEHENSILE FOOT. 125 

of the Gorilla looks very hand-like, and as it is still 
more so in many of the lower apes, it is not won- 
derful that the appellation " Qnadrumana/^ or 
four-handed creatures, adopted from the older 
anatomists * by Blumenbach, and unfortunately 
rendered current by Cuvier, should have gained 
such wide acceptance as a name for the Simian 
group. But the most cursory anatomical investi- 
gation at once proves that the resemblance of the 
so-called "hind hand^' to a true hand, is only 
skin deep, and that, in all essential respects, the 
hind limb of the Gorilla is as truly terminated 
by a foot as that of man. The tarsal bones, in all 
important circumstances of number, disposition, 
and form, resemble those of man (Fig. 20). The 
metatarsals and digits, on the other hand, are pro- 
portionally longer and more slender, while the 
great toe is not only proportionally shorter and 

* In speaking of the foot of his " Pygmie," Tyson re- 
marks, p. 13: — 

" But this part in the formation and in its function 
too, being liker a Hand than a Foot: for the distinguish- 
ing this sort of animals from others, I have thought 
whether it might not be reckoned and called rather Quad- 
ru-manus than Quadrupes, i. e. a four-handed rather than 
a four-footed animal." 

As this passage was published in 1699, M. I. G. St. 
Hilaire is clearly in error in ascribing the invention of the 
term " quadrumanous " to Buff on, though " bimanous " 
may belong to him. Tyson uses " Quadrumanus " in 
several places, as at p. 91. ... " Our Pygmie is no Man, 
nor yet the common Ape, but a sort of Animal between 
both ; and though a Biped, yet of the Qiiadrumavms -kind : 
though some Men too have been observed to use their 
Feet like Hands as I have seen several." 



126 MAN AND THE LOWER ANIMALS. n 

weaker, but its metatarsal bone is united by a 
more moveable joint with the tarsus. At the same 
time, the foot is set more obliquely upon the leg 
than in man. 

As to the muscles, there is a short flexor, a 
short extensor, and a peronceus longus, while the 
tendons of the long flexors of the great toe and of 
the other toes are united together and with an ac- 
cessory fleshy bundle. 

The hind limb of the Gorilla, therefore, ends 
in a true foot, with a very moveable great toe. It 
is a prehensile foot, indeed, but is in no sense a 
hand; it is a foot which differs from that of man 
not in any fundamental character, but in mere 
proportions, in the degree of mobility, and in the 
secondary arrangement of its parts. 

It must not be supposed, however, because I 
speak of these differences as not fundamental, that 
I wish to underrate their value. They are im- 
portant enough in their way, the structure of the 
foot being in strict correlation with that of the 
rest of the organism in each case. Nor can it be 
doubted that the greater division of physiological 
labour in Man, so that the function of support is 
thrown wholly on the leg and foot, is an advance 
in organization of very great moment to him; but, 
after all, regarded anatomically, the resemblances 
between the foot of Man and the foot of the Gorilla 
are far more striking and important than the dif- 
ferences. 



II APES: HAND AND FOOT. 127 

I have dwelt upon this point at length, because 
it is one regarding which much delusion prevails; 
but I might have passed it over without detriment 
to my argument, which only requires me to show 
that, be the differences between the hand and foot 
of Man and those of the Gorilla what they may — 
the differences between those of the Gorilla, and 
those of the lower Apes are much greater. 

It is not necessary to descend lower in the scale 
than the Orang for conclusive evidence on this 
head. 

The thumb of the Orang differs more from 
that of the Gorilla than the thumb of the Gorilla 
differs from that of Man, not only by its shortness, 
but by the absence of any special long flexor mus- 
cle. The carpus of the Orang, like that of most 
lower apes, contains nine bones, while in the Go- 
rilla, as in Man and the Chimpanzee, there are only 
eight. 

The Orang's foot (Fig. 20) is still more aber- 
rant; its very long toes and short tarsus, short 
great toe, short and raised heel, great obliquity of 
articulation with the leg, and absence of a long 
flexor tendon to the great toe, separating it far 
more widely from the foot of the Gorilla than the 
latter is separated from that of Man. 

But, in some of the lower apes, the hand and 
foot diverge still more from those of the Gorilla, 
than they do in the Orang. The thumb ceases to 
be opposable in the American monkeys; is reduced 



128 MAN AND THE LOWER ANIMALS. 



II 



to a mere rudiment covered by the skin in the 
Spider Monkey; and is directed forwards and armed 
with a curved claw like the other digits, in the 
Marmosets — so that, in all these cases, there can 




r;^ 



2d.cLn ^-—"^ tkcrilta/^^^^^"'' '■^^^' Orount, 

Fig. 20. — ^Foot of Man, Gorilla, and Orang-Utan of the 
same absolute length, to show the differences in propor- 
tion of each. Letters as in Fig, 19. Reduced from original 
drawings by Mr. Waterhouse Hawkins. 

be no doubt but that the hand is more different 
from that of the Gorilla than the Gorilla's hand 
is from Man's. 



II APES: HAND AND FOOT. 129 

And as to the foot, the great toe of the Mar- 
moset is still more insignificant in proportion than 
that of the Orang — while in the Lemurs it is very- 
large, and as completely thumb-like and opposable 
as in the Gorilla — but in these animals the second 
toe is often irregularly modified, and in some spe- 
cies the two principal bones of the tarsus, the 
astragalus and the os calcis, are so immensely 
elongated as to render the foot, so far, totally un- 
like that of any other mammal. 

So with regard to the muscles. The short 
flexor of the toes of the Gorilla differs from that 
of Man by the circumstance that one slip of the 
muscle is attached, not to the heel bone, but to 
the tendons of the long flexors. The lower Apes 
depart from the Gorilla by an exaggeration of the 
same character, two, three, or more, slips becoming 
fixed to the long flexor tendons — or by a multipli- 
cation of the slips. — Again, the Gorilla differs 
slightly from Man in the mode of interlacing of 
the long flexor tendons: and the lower apes differ 
from the Gorilla in exhibiting yet other, some- 
times very complex, arrangements of the same 
parts, and occasionally in the absence of the acces- 
sory fleshy bundle. 

Throughout all these modifications it must be 
recollected that the foot loses no one of its essen- 
tial characters. Every Monkey and Lemur ex- 
hibits the characteristic arrangement of tarsal 
bones, possesses a short flexor and short extensor 
173 



130 MAN AND THE LOWER ANIMALS. n 

muscle^ and a peronwus longus. Varied as the pro- 
portions and appearance of the organ may he, the 
terminal division of the hind limh remains, in plan 
and principle of construction, a foot, and never, 
in those respects, can be confounded with a hand. 

Hardly any part of the bodily frame, then, 
could be found better calculated to illustrate the 
truth that the structural differences between Man 
and the highest Ape are of less value than those 
between the highest and the lower Apes, than 
the hand or the foot; and yet, perhaps, there is 
one organ the study of which enforces the same 
conclusion in a still more striking manner — and 
that is the Brain. 

But before entering upon the precise question 
of the amount of difference between the Ape^s 
brain and that of Man, it is necessary that we 
should clearly understand what constitutes a great, 
and what a small difference in cerebral structure; 
and we shall be best enabled to do this by a brief 
study of the chief modifications which the brain 
exhibits in the series of vertebrate animals. 

The brain of a fish is very small, compared with 
the spinal cord into which it is continued, and 
with the nerves which come off from it: of the 
segments of which it is composed — ^the olfactory 
lobes, the cerebral hemispheres, and the succeed- 
ing divisions — no one predominates so much over 
the rest as to obscure or cover them; and the so- 
called optic lobes are, frequently, the largest 



II VERTEBRATA: BRAINS. 131 

masses of all. In Eeptiles, the mass of the brain, 
relatively to the spinal cord, increases and the 
cerebral hemispheres begin to predominate over 
the other parts; while in Birds this predominance 
is still more marked. The brain of the lowest Mam- 
mals, such as the duck-billed Platypus and the 
Opossums and Kangaroos, exhibits a still more 
definite advance in the same direction. The cere- 
bral hemispheres have now so much increased in 
size as, more or less, to hide the representatives 
of the optic lobes, which remain comparatively 
small, so that the brain of a Marsupial is extremely 
different from that of a Bird, Eeptile, or Fish. A 
step higher in the scale, among the placental Mam- 
mals, the structure of the brain acquires a vast 
modification — not that it appears much altered 
externally, in a Eat or in a Eabbit, from what it 
is in a Marsupial — nor that the proportions of its 
parts are much changed, but an apparently new 
structure is found between the cerebral hemi- 
spheres, connecting them together, at what is 
called the " great commissure ^' or " corpus cal- 
losum.^' The subject requires careful re-investi- 
gation, but if the currently received statements 
are correct, the appearance of the " corpus cal- 
losum '^ in the placental mammals is the greatest 
and most sudden modification exhibited by the 
brain in the whole series of vertebrated animals — 
it is the greatest leap anywhere made by Nature in 
her brain work. For the two halves of the brain 



132 MAN AND THE LOWER ANIMALS. n 

being once thus knit together, the progress of 
cerebral complexity is traceable through a com- 
plete series of steps from the lowest Eodent, or 
Insectivore, to Man; and that complexity consists, 
chiefly, in the disproportionate development of the 
cerebral hemispheres and of the cerebellum, but 
especially of the former, in respect to the other 
parts of the brain. 

In the lower placental mammals, the cerebral 
hemispheres leave the proper upper and posterior 
face of the cerebellum completely visible, when 
the brain is viewed from above; but, in the higher 
forms, the hinder part of each hemisphere, sepa- 
rated only by the tentorium (p. 136) from the an- 
terior face of the cerebellum, inclines backwards 
and downwards, and grows out, as the so-called 
"posterior lobe," so as at length to overlap and 
hide the cerebellum. In all Mammals, each 
cerebral hemisphere contains a cavity which is 
termed the " ventricle "; and as this ventricle is 
prolonged, on the one hand, forwards, and on the 
other downwards, into the substance of the hemi- 
sphere, it is said io have two horns or " cornua," 
an " anterior cornu," and a " descending cornu." 
When the posterior lobe is well developed, a third 
prolongation of the ventricular cavity extends into 
it, and is called the " posterior cornu." 

In the lower and smaller forms of placental 
Mammals the surface of the cerebral hemispheres 
is either smooth or evenly rounded, or exhibits a 



n MAMMALIA: BRAINS. 133 

very few grooves, which are technically termed 
" sulci," separating ridges or " convolutions '' of 
the substance of the brain; and the smaller species 
of all orders tend to a similar smoothness of brain. 
But, in the higher orders, and especially the larger 
members of these orders, the grooves, or sulci, 
become extremely numerous, and the intermediate 
convolutions proportionately more complicated in 
their meanderings, until, in the Elephant, the 
Porpoise, the higher Apes, and Man, the cerebral 
surface appears a perfect labyrinth of tortuous 
foldings. 

Where a posterior lobe exists and presents its 
customary cavity — the posterior cornu — it com- 
monly happens that a particular sulcus appears 
upon the inner and under surface of the lobe, 
parallel with and beneath the floor of the cornu — 
which is, as it were, arched over the roof of the 
sulcus. It is as if the groove had been formed by 
indenting the floor of the posterior horn from with- 
out with a blunt instrument, so that the floor 
should rise as a convex eminence. Now this 
eminence is what has been termed the " Hippo- 
campus minor; " the " Hippocampus major " being 
a larger eminence in the floor of the descending 
cornu. What may be the functional importance 
of either of these structures we know not. 

As if to demonstrate, by a striking example, the 
impossibility of erecting any cerebral barrier be- 



134 MAN AND THE LOWER ANIMALS. ii 

tween man and the apes^ N'ature has provided us, 
in the latter animals, with an almost complete 
series of gradations from brains little higher than 
that of a Rodent, to brains little lower than that 
of Man. And it is a remarkable circumstance, that 
though so far as our present knowledge extends, 
there is one true structural break in the series of 
forms of Simian brains, this hiatus does not lie 
between Man and the man-like apes, but between 
the lower and the lowest Simians; or, in other 
words, between the old and new world apes and 
monkeys, and the Lemurs. Every Lemur which 
has yet been examined, in fact, has its cerebellum 
partially visible from above, and its posterior lobe, 
with the contained posterior cornu and hippo- 
campus minor, more or less rudimentary. Every 
Marmoset, American monkey, old world monkey, 
Baboon, or Man-like ape, on the contrary, has its 
cerebellum entirely hidden, posteriorly, by the 
cerebral lobes, and possesses a large posterior 
cornu, with a well-developed hippocampus minor. 

In many of these creatures, such as the Saimiri 
(Chrysothrix), the cerebral lobes overlap and ex- 
tend much further behind the cerebellum, in pro- 
portion, than they do in man (Fig. 17) — and it 
is quite certain that, in all, the cerebellum is com- 
pletely covered behind, by well developed posterior 
lobes. The fact can be verified by every one who 
possesses the skull of any old or new world mon- 
key. For, inasmuch as the brain in all mammals 



II THE POSTERIOR LOBES. 135 

completely fills the cranial cavity, it is obvious 
that a cast of the interior of the skull will repro- 
duce the general form of the brain, at any rate 
with such minute and, for the present purpose, 
utterly unimportant differences as may result from 
the absence of the enveloping membranes of the 
brain in the dry skull. But if such a cast be made 
in plaster, and compared with a similar cast of the 
interior of a human skull, it will be obvious -that 
the cast of the cerebral chamber, representing the 
cerebrum of the ape, as completely covers over, and 
overlaps the cast of the cerebellar chamber, repre- 
senting the cerebellum, as it does in the man (Fig. 
21). A careless observer, forgetting that a soft 
structure like the brain loses its proper shape\the 
moment it is taken out of the skull, may indeed 
mistake the uncovered condition of the cerebel- 
lum of an extracted and distorted brain for the 
natural relations of the parts; but his error must 
become patent even to himself if he try to replace 
the brain within the cranial chamber. To suppose 
that the cerebellum of an ape is naturally uncov- 
ered behind is a miscomprehension comparable 
only to that of one who should imagine that a 
man's lungs always occupy but a small portion of 
the thoracic cavity, because they do so when the 
chest is opened, and their elasticity is no longer 
neutralized by the pressure of the air. 

And the error is the less excusable, as it must 
become apparent to every one who examines a sec- 




CTtirrvp curt ze e. 



Fig. 21. — Drawings of the internal casts of a Man's and 
of a Chimpanzee's skull, of the same absolute length, and 
placed in corresponding positions, A. Cerebrum; B. Cere- 
bellum. The former drawing is taken from a cast in the 
Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons, the latter from 
the photograph of the cast of a Chimpanzee's skull, which 
illustrates the paper by Mr. Marshall " On the Brain of 



n THE POSTEEIOR LOBES. I37 

the Chimpanzee " in the Natural History Revieic for 
July, 1861. The sharper definition of the lower edge of 
the east of the cerebral chamber in the Chimpanzee arises 
from the circumstance that the tentorium remained in 
that skull and not in the Man's. The cast more accurately 
represents the brain in the Chimpanzee than in the Man; 
and the great backward projection of the posterior lobes 
of the cerebrum of the former, beyond the cerebellum, is 
conspicuous. 



tion of the skull of any ape above a Lemur, without 
taking the trouble to make a cast of it. For there 
is a very marked groove in every such skull, as in 
the human skull — which indicates the line of at- 
tachment of what is termed the tentorium — a sort 
of parchment-like shelf, or partition, which, in the 
recent state, is interposed between the cerebrum 
and cerebellum, and prevents the former from 
pressing upon the latter. (See Fig. 17.) 

This groove, therefore, indicates the line of 
separation between that part of the cranial cavity 
which contains the cerebrum, and that which 
contains the cerebellum; and as the brain exactly 
fills the cavity of the skull, it is obvious that the 
relations of these two parts of the cranial cavity 
at once informs us of the relations of their con- 
tents. Now in man, in all the old world, and in 
all the new world Simile, with one exception, when 
the face is directed forwards, this line of attach- 
ment of the tentorium, or impression for the lateral 
sinus, as it is technically called, is nearly hori- 
zontal, and the cerebral chamber invariably over- 
laps or projects behind the cerebellar chamber. 



138 MAN AND THE LOWER ANIMALS. ii 

In the Howler Monkey or Mycetes (see Fig. 17), 
the line passes obliquely upwards and backwards, 
and the cerebral overlap is almost nil; while in 
the Lemurs, as in the lower mammals, the line is 
much more inclined in the same direction, and the 
cerebellar chamber projects considerably beyond 
the cerebral. 

When the gravest errors respecting points so 
easily settled as this question respecting the pos- 
terior lobes, can be authoritatively propounded, it 
is no wonder that matters of observation, of no 
very complex character, but still requiring a certain 
amount of care, should have fared worse. Any 
one who cannot see the posterior lobe in an ape's 
brain is not likely to give a very valuable opinion 
respecting the posterior cornu or the hippocampus 
minor. If a man cannot see a church, it is pre- 
posterous to take his opinion about its altar-piece 
or painted window — so that I do not feel bound to 
enter upon any discussion of these points, but con- 
tent myself with assuring the reader that the pos- 
terior cornu and the hippocampus minor, have now 
been seen — usually, at least as well developed as in 
man, and often better — not only in the Chimpan- 
zee, the Orang, and the Gibbon, but in all the gen- 
era of the old world baboons and monkeys, and in 
most of the new world forms, including the Mar- 
mosets. 

In fact, all the abundant and trustworthy evi- 
dence (consisting of the results of careful inves- 



II PATTERN OF CONVOLUTIONS. 139 

tigations directed to the determination of these 
very questions, by skilled anatomists) which we 
now possess, leads to the conviction that, so far 
from the posterior lobe, the posterior cornu, and 
the hippocampus minor, being structures peculiar 
to and characteristic of man, as they have been 
over and over again asserted to be, even after the 
publication of the clearest demonstration of the 
reverse, it is precisely these structures which are 
the most marked cerebral characters common to 
'man with the apes. They are among the most dis- 
tinctly Simian peculiarities which the human or- 
ganism exhibits. 

As to the convolutions, the brains of the apes 
exhibit every stage of progress, from the almost 
smooth brain of the Marmoset, to the Orang and 
the Chimpanzee, which fall but little below Man. 
And it is most remarkable that, as soon as all 
the principal sulci appear, the pattern according 
to which they are arranged is identical with that 
of the corresponding sulci of man. The surface of 
the brain of a monkey exhibits a sort of skeleton 
map of man's, and in the man-like apes the details 
become more and more filled in, until it is only 
in minor characters, such as the greater excavation 
of the anterior lobes, the constant presence of fis- 
sures usually absent in man, and the different dis- 
position and proportions of some convolutions, that 
the Chimpanzee's or the Orang's brain can be 
structurally distinguished from Man's. 



14:0 MAN AND THE LOWER ANIMALS. ii 

So far as cerebral structure goes, therefore, it 
is clear that Man differs less from the Chimpanzee 
or the Orang, than these do even from the Mon- 
keys, and that the diJfference between the brains 
of the Chimpanzee and of Man is almost insig- 
nificant, when compared with that between the 
Chimpanzee brain and that of a Lemur. 

It must not be overlooked, however, that there 
is a very striking difference in absolute mass and 
weight between the lowest human brain and that 
of the highest ape — a difference which is all the 
more remarkable when we recollect that a full- 
grown Gorilla is probably pretty nearly twice as 
heavy as a Bosjesman, or as many an European 
woman. It may be doubted whether a healthy 
human adult brain ever weighed less than thirty- 
one or two ounces, or that the heaviest Gorilla brain 
has exceeded twenty ounces. 

This is a very noteworthy circumstance, and 
doubtless will one day help to furnish an explana- 
tion of the great gulf which intervenes between the 
lowest man and the highest ape in intellectual 
power; * but it has little systematic value, for the 



* I say help to furnish : for I by no means believe that 
it was any original difference of cerebral quality, or quan- 
tity, which caused that divergence between the human 
and the pithecoid stirpes, which has ended in the present 
enormous gulf between them. It is no doubt perfectly 
true, in a certain sense, that all difference of function is a 
result of difference of structure; or, in other words, of 
difference in the combination of the primary molecular 
forces of living substance; and, starting from this unde- 




. h 



Chimpanzee. a. 

Fig. 22.— Drawing of the cerebral hemispheres of a Man, 



142 MAN AND THE LOWER ANIMALS. ii 

and of a Chimpanzee of the same length, in order to show 
the relative proportions of the parts: the former taken 
from a specimen, which Mr. Flower, Conservator of the 
Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons, was good 
enough to dissect for me ; the latter, from the photograph 
of a similarly dissected Chimpanzee's brain, given in Mr. 
Marshall's paper above referred to. a, posterior lobe; h, 
lateral ventricle; c, posterior cornu; x, the hippocampus 
minor. 

simple reason that, as may be concluded from what 
has been already said respecting cranial capacity, 

niable axiom, objectors occasionally, and with much seem- 
ing plausibility, argue that the vast intellectual chasm 
between the Ape and Man implies a corresponding struc- 
tural chasm in the organs of the intellectual functions; 
so that, it is said, the non-discovery of such vast differ- 
ences proves, not that they are absent, but that Science is 
incompetent to detect them. A very little consideration, 
however, will, I think, show the fallacy of this reasoning. 
Its validity hangs upon the assumption, that intellectual 
power depends altogether on the brain — whereas the brain 
is only one condition out of many on which intellectual 
manifestations depend; the others being, chiefly, the or- 
gans of the senses and the motor apparatuses, especially 
those which are concerned in prehension and in the pro- 
duction of articulate speech. 

A man born dumb, notwithstanding his great cerebral 
mass and his inheritance of strong intellectual instincts, 
would be capable of few higher intellectual manifestations 
than an Orang or a Chimpanzee, if he were confined to 
the society of dumb associates. And yet there might not 
be the slightest discernible difference between his brain 
and that of a highly intelligent and cultivated person. 
The dumbness might be the result of a defective innerva- 
tion of these parts; or it might result from congenital 
deafness, caused by some minute defect of the internal 
ear, which only a careful anatomist could discover. 

The argument, that because there is an immense dif- 
ference between a Man's intelligence and an Ape's, there- 
fore, there must be an equally immense difference between 
their brains, appears to me to be about as well based as 
the reasoning by which one should endeavour to prove 
that, because there is a "great gulf" between a watch 



K WEIGHT OF THE BRAIN. 143 

the difference in weight of brain between the 
highest and the lowest men is far greater, both 
relatively and absolutely, than that between the 
lowest man and the highest ape. The latter, as 
has been seen, is represented by, say twelve, ounces 
of cerebral substance absolutely or by 32 : 20 rela- 
tively; but as the largest recorded human brain 
weighed between 65 and QQ ounces, the former dif- 
ference is represented by more than 33 ounces abso- 
lutely, or by 65 : 32 relatively. Eegarded system- 
atically, the cerebral differences of man and apes, 
are not of more than generic value; his Family 
distinction resting chiefly on his dentition, his pel- 
vis, and his lower limbs. 

Thus, whatever system of organs be studied, 
the comparison of their modifications in the ape 
series leads to one and the same result — that the 
structural differences which separate Man from 
the Gorilla and the Chimpanzee are not so great 

that keeps accurate time and another that will not go at 
all, there is therefore a great structural hiatus between 
the two watches. A hair in the balance-wheel, a little 
rust on a pinion, a bend in a tooth of the escapement, a 
something so slight that only the practised eye of the 
watchmaker can discover it, may be the source of all the 
difference. 

And believing, as I do, with Cuvier, that the possession 
of articulate speech is the grand distinctive character of 
man (whether it be absolutely peculiar to him or not), I 
find it very easy to comprehend, that some equally incon- 
spicuous structural difference may have been the primary 
cause of the immeasurable and practically infinite diver- 
gence of the Human from the Simian Stirps. 



144 MAN AND THE LOWER ANIMALS. n 

as those which separate the Gorilla from the lower 
apes. 

But in enunciating this important truth I must 
guard myself against a form of misunderstanding, 
which is very prevalent. I find, in fact, that those 
who endeavour to teach what nature so clearly 
shows us in this matter, are liable to have their 
opinions misrepresented and their phraseology 
garbled, until they seem to say that the structural 
differences between man and even the highest apes 
are small and insignificant. Let me take this oppor- 
tunity then of distinctly asserting^ on the contrary, 
that they are great and significant; that every bone 
of a Grorilla bears marks by which it might be dis- 
tinguished from the corresponding bone of a Man; 
and that, in the present creation, at any rate, no 
intermediate link bridges over the gap between 
Homo and Troglodytes. 

It would be no less wrong than absurd to deny 
the existence of this chasm; but it is at least 
equally wrong and absurd to exaggerate its mag- 
nitude and, resting on the admitted fact of its 
existence, to refuse to inquire whether it is wide 
or narrow. Eemember, if you will, that there is 
no existing link between Man and the Gorilla, but 
do not forget that there is a no less sharp line of 
demarcation, a no less complete absence of any 
transitional form, between the Gorilla and the 
Orang, or the Orang and the Gibbon. I say, not 
less sharp, though it is somewhat narrower. The 



11 MAN ONE OF THE PRIMATES. 145 

structural differences between Man and the Man- 
like apes certainly justify our regarding him as 
constituting a family apart from them; though, 
inasmuch as he differs less from them than they 
do from other families of the same order, there 
can be no justification for placing him in a dis- 
tinct order. 

And thus the sagacious foresight of the great 
lawgiver of systematic zoology, Linnaeus, becomes 
justified, and a century of anatomical research 
brings us back to his conclusion, that man is a 
member of the same order (for which the Linnsean 
term Peimates ought to be retained) as the Apes 
and Lemurs. This order is now divisible into seven 
families, of about equal systematic value: the 
first, the Anthropini, contains Man alone; the 
second, the Cataehini, embraces the old world 
apes; the third, the Platyehini, all new world 
apes, except the Marmosets; the fourth, the 
Arctopithecini, contains the Marmosets; the 
fifth, the Lemueini, the Lemurs — from which 
Cheiromys should probably be excluded to form a 
sixth distinct family, the Cheieomyini; while the 
seventh, the Galeopithecini, contains only the 
flying Lemur GaUopithecus, — a strange form which 
almost touches on the Bats, as the Cheiromys puts 
on a Rodent clothing, and the Lemurs simulate 
Insectivora. 

Perhaps no order of mammals presents us with 
so extraordinary a series of gradations as this — 
174 



146 MAN AND THE LOWER ANIMALS. n 

leading us insensibly from the crown and summit 
of the animal creation down to creatures, from 
which there is but a step, as it seems, to the low- 
est, smallest, and least intelligent of the placental 
Mammalia. It is as if nature herself had fore- 
seen the arrogance of man, and with Eoman 
severity had provided that his intellect, by its 
very triumphs, should call into prominence the 
slaves, admonishing the conqueror that he is but 
dust. 

These are the chief facts, this the immediate 
conclusion from them to which I adverted in the 
commencement of this Essay. The facts, I be- 
lieve, cannot be disputed; and if so, the conclusion 
appears to me to be inevitable. 

But if Man be separated by no greater struc- 
tural barrier from the brutes than they are from 
one another — then it seems to follow that if any 
process of physical causation can be discovered by 
which the genera and families of ordinary animals 
have been produced, that process of causation is 
amply sufficient to account for the origin of Man. 
In other words, if it could be shown that the Mar- 
mosets, for example, have arisen by gradual modi- 
fication of the ordinary Platyrhini, or that both 
Marmosets and Platyrhini are modified rami- 
fications of a primitive stock — then, there would 
be no rational ground for doubting that man might 
have originated, in the one case, by the gradual 



n THE ORIGIN OF MAN. I47 

modification of a man-like ape; or, in the other 
case, as a ramification of the same primitive stock 
as those apes. 

At the present moment, but one snch process 
of physical causation has any evidence in its fa- 
vour; or, in other words, there is but one hypoth- 
esis regarding the origin of species of animals 
in general which has any scientific existence 
— that propounded by Mr. Darwin. For La- 
marck, sagacious as many of his views were, 
mingled them with so much that was crude 
and even absurd, as to neutralize the benefit 
which his originality might have effected, had he 
been a more sober and cautious thinker; and though 
I have heard of the announcement of a formula 
touching " the ordained continuous becoming of 
organic forms,^' it is obvious that it is the first 
duty of a hypothesis to be intelligible, and that 
a qua-qua-versal proposition of this kind, which 
may be read backwards, or forwards, or side- 
ways, with exactly the same amount of significa- 
tion, does not really exist, though it may seem to 
do so. 

At the present moment, therefore, the question 
of the relation of man to the lower animals re- 
solves itself, in the end, into the larger question 
of the tenability, or untenability, of Mr. Darwin's 
views. But here we enter upon difficult ground, 
and it behoves us to define our exact position with 
the greatest care. 



148 MAN AND THE LOWER ANIMALS. n 

It cannot be doubted, I think, that Mr. Dar- 
win has satisfactorily proved that what he terms 
selection, or selective modification, must occur, 
and does occur, in nature; and he has also proved 
to superfluity that such selection is competent to 
produce forms as distinct, structurally, as some 
genera even are. If the animated world presented 
us with none but structural differences, I should 
have no hesitation in saying that Mr. Darwin had 
demonstrated the existence of a true physical cause, 
amply competent to account for the origin of liv- 
ing species, and of man among the rest. 

But, in addition to their structural distinctions, 
the species of animals and plants, or at least 
a great number of them, exhibit physiological 
characters^what are known as distinct species, 
structurally, being for the most part either alto- 
gether incompetent to breed one with another; or 
if they breed, the resulting mule, or hybrid, is 
unable to perpetuate its race with another hybrid 
of the same kind. 

A true physical cause is, however, admitted to 
be such only on one condition — that it shall 
account for all the phenomena which come within 
the range of its operation. If it is inconsistent 
with any one phenomenon, it must be rejected; 
if it fails to explain any one phenomenon, it is so 
far weak, so far to be suspected; though it may 
have a perfect right to claim provisional accept- 
ance. 



II DARWIN'S HYPOTHESIS. I49 

Now, Mr. Darwin's hypothesis is not, so far as 
I am aware, inconsistent with any known biological 
fact; on the contrary, if admitted, the facts of De- 
velopment, of Comparative Anatomy, of Geo- 
graphical Distribution, and of Palaeontology, be- 
come connected together, and exhibit a meaning 
such as they never possessed before; and I, for 
one, am fully convinced, that if not precisely 
true, that hypothesis is as near an approxima- 
tion to the truth as, for example, the Copernican 
hypothesis was to the true theory of the planetary 
motions. 

But, for all this, our acceptance of the Dar- 
winian hypothesis must be provisional so long as 
one link in the chain of evidence is wanting; and 
so long as all the animals and plants certainly pro- 
duced by selective breeding from a common stock 
are fertile, and their progeny are fertile with one 
another, that link will be wanting. For, so long, 
selective breeding will not be proved to be com- 
petent to do all that is required of it to produce 
natural species. 

I have put this conclusion as strongly as 
possible before the reader, because the last posi- 
tion in which I wish to find myself is that of an 
advocate for Mr. Darwin's, or any other views; if 
by an advocate is meant one whose business it is 
to smooth over real difficulties, and to persuade 
where he cannot convince. 

In justice to Mr. Darwin, however, it must be 



150 MAN AND THE LOWER ANIMALS. ii 

admitted that the conditions of fertility and steril- 
ity are very ill understood, and that every day's 
advance in knowledge leads us to regard the hiatus 
in his evidence as of less and less importance, when 
set against the multitude of facts which harmonize 
with, or receive an explanation from, his doc- 
trines. 

I adopt Mr. Darwin's hypothesis, therefore, sub- 
ject to the production of proof that physiological 
species may be produced by selective breeding; just 
as a physical philosopher may accept the undu- 
latory theory of light, subject to the proof of the 
existence of the hypothetical ether; or as the chem- 
ist adopts the atomic theory, subject to the proof 
of the existence of atoms; and for exactly the same 
reasons, namely, that it has an immense amount 
of prima facie probability: that it is the only means 
at present within reach of reducing the chaos of 
observed facts to order; and lastly, that it is the 
most powerful instrument of investigation which 
has been presented to naturalists since the inven- 
tion of the natural system of classification, and 
the commencement of the systematic study of 
embryology. 

But even leaving Mr. Darwin's views aside, the 
whole analogy of natural operations furnishes so 
complete and crushing an argument against the 
intervention of any but what are termed secondary 
causes, in the production of all the phenomena of 
the universe; that, in view of the intimate rela- 



OBJECTIONS: SENTIMENTAL AND OTHER. 151 

tions between Man and the rest of the living 
world, and between the forces exerted by the lat- 
ter and all other forces, I can see no excuse for 
doubting that all are co-ordinated terms of 
Nature's great progression, from the formless 
to the formed — from the inorganic to the or- 
ganic — from blind force to conscious intellect and 
will. 

Science has fulfilled her function when she has 
ascertained and enunciated truth; and were these 
pages addressed to men of science only, I should 
now close this Essay, knowing that my colleagues 
have learned to respect nothing but evidence, and 
to believe that their highest duty lies in sub- 
mitting to it, however it may jar against their in- 
clinations. 

But, desiring, as I do, to reach the wider circle 
of the intelligent public, it would be unworthy 
cowardice were I to ignore the repugnance with 
which the majority of my readers are likely to 
meet the conclusions to which the most careful and 
conscientious study I have been able to give to 
this matter, has led me. 

On all sides I shall hear the cry — " We are men 
and women, not a mere better sort of apes, a little 
longer in the leg, more compact in the foot, and 
bigger in brain than your brutal Chimpanzees and 
Gorillas. The power of knowledge — the conscience 
of good and evil — the pitiful tenderness of human 
affections, raise us out of all real fellowship with 



152 MAN AND THE LOWER ANIMALS. ii 

the brutes, however closely they may seem to ap- 
proximate us/' 

To this I can only reply that the exclamation 
would be most just and would have my own entire 
sympathy, if it were only relevant. But, it is not 
I who seek to base Man's dignity upon his great 
toe, or insinuate that we are lost if an Ape has a 
hippocampus minor. On the contrary, I have done 
my best to sweep away this vanity. I have en- 
deavoured to show that no absolute structural line 
of demarcation, wider than that between the ani- 
mals which immediately succeed us in the scale, 
can be drawn between the animal world and our- 
selves; and I may add the expression of my belief 
that the attempt to draw a psychical distinction 
is equally futile, and that even the highest facul- 
ties of feeling and of intellect begin to germinate 
in lower forms of life.* At the same time, no one 
is more strongly convinced than I am of the vast- 
ness of the gulf between civilised man and the 
brutes; or is more certain that whether from them 
or not, he is assuredly not of them. Ko one is 
less disposed to think likely of the present 
dignity, or despairingly of the future hopes, 

* It is so rare a pleasure for me to find Professor 
Owen's opinions in entire accordance with my own, that I 
cannot forbear from quoting a paragraph which appeared 
in his Essay " On the Characters, &c., of the Class Mam- 
malia," in the Journal of tlie Proceedings of the Linnean 
Society of London for 1857, but is unaccountably omitted 
in the " Reade Lecture " delivered before the University 
of Cambridge two years later, which is otherwise nearly 
a reprint of the paper in question. Prof. Owen writes: 



n OBJECTIONS. 153 

of the only consciously intelligent denizen of this 
world. 

We are indeed told by those who assume author- 
ity in these matters, that the two sets of opinions 
are incompatible, and that the belief in the unity 
of origin of man and brutes involves the brutaliza- 
tion and degradation of the former. But is this 
really so? Could not a sensible child confute by 
obvious arguments, the shallow rhetoricians who 
would force this conclusion upon us? Is it, in- 
deed, true, that the Poet, or the Philosopher, or 
the Artist whose genius is the glory of his age, 
is degraded from his high estate by the undoubted 
historical probability, not to say certainty, that he 
is the direct descendant of some naked and bestial 
savage, whose intelligence was just sufficient to 
make him a little more cunning than the Fox, and 
by so much more dangerous than the Tiger? Or is 
he bound to howl and grovel on all fours because of 



" Not being able to appreciate or conceive of the dis- 
tinction between the psychical phenomena of a Chimpan- 
zee and of a Boschisman or of an Aztec, with arrested 
brain growth, as being of a nature so essential as to pre- 
clude a comparison between them, or as being other than 
a difference of degree, I cannot shut my eyes to the sig- 
nificance of that all-pervading similitude of structure— 
every tooth, every bone, strictly homologous — which 
makes the determination of the difference between Homo 
and Pithecus the anatomist's difficulty." 

Surely it is a little singular, that the " anatomist," 
who finds it " difficult " to determine " the difference " be- 
tween Homo and Pithecus, should yet range them on 
anatomical grounds, in distinct sub-classes. 



154 MAN AND THE LOWER ANIMALS. n 

the wholly unquestionable fact;, that he was once 
an egg, which no ordinary power of discrimination 
could distinguish from that of a Dog? Or is the 
philanthropist, or the saint, to give up his en- 
deavours to lead a noble life, because the simplest 
study of man's nature reveals, at its foundations, 
all the selfish passions, and fierce appetites of the 
merest quadruped? Is mother-love vile because a 
hen shows it, or fidelity base because dogs pos- 
sess it? 

The common sense of the mass of mankind 
will answer these questions without a moment's 
hesitation. Healthy humanity, finding itself hard 
pressed to escape from real sin and degrada- 
tion, will leave the brooding over speculative 
pollution to the cynics and the "righteous over- 
much " who, disagreeing in everything else, 
unite in blind insensibility to the nobleness 
of the visible world, and in inability to appre- 
ciate the grandeur of the place Man occupies 
therein. 

Nay more, thoughtful men, once escaped from 
the blinding influences of traditional prejudice, 
will find in the lowly stock whence Man has 
sprung, the best evidence of the splendour of his 
capacities; and will discern in his long progress 
through the Past, a reasonable ground of faith in 
his attainment of a nobler Future. 

They will remember that in comparing civilised 
man with the animal world, one is as the Alpine 



n OBJECTIONS. 165 

traveller, who sees the mountains soaring into the 
sky and can hardly discern where the deep 
shadowed crags and roseate peaks end, and where 
the clouds of heaven begin. Surely the awe- 
struck voyager may be excused if, at first, he re- 
fuses to believe the geologist, who tells him that 
these glorious masses are, after all, the hardened 
mud of primeval seas, or the cooled slag of 
subterranean furnaces — of one substance with 
the dullest clay, but raised by inward forces 
to that place of proud and seemingly inaccessible 
glory. 

But the geologist is right; and due reflection 
on his teachings, instead of diminishing our rever- 
ence and our wonder, adds all the force of intel- 
lectual sublimity to the mere aesthetic intuition of. 
the uninstructed beholder. 

And after passion and prejudice have died 
away, the same result will attend the teachings of 
the naturalist respecting that great Alps and Andes 
of the living world — Man. Our reverence for the 
nobility of manhood will not be lessened by the 
knowledge that Man is, in substance and in struc- 
ture, one with the brutes; for, he alone possesses 
the marvellous endowment of intelligible and 
rational speech, whereby, in the secular period 
of his existence, he has slowly accumulated and 
organised the experience which is almost wholly 
lost with the cessation of every individual life 
in other animals; so that, now, he stands raised 



156 MAN AND THE LOWER ANIMALS. n 

upon it as on a mountain top, far above the 
level of his humble fellows, and transfigured 
from his grosser nature by reflecting, here 
and there, a ray from the infinite source of 
truth. 



III. 

ON" SOME FOSSIL EEMAINS OF MAN. 

I HA YE endeavoured to show, in the preceding 
Essay, that the Anthkopini, or Man Family, form 
a very well-defined group of the Primates, between 
which and the immediately following Family, the 
Cataehini, there is, in the existing world, the 
same entire absence of any transitional form or 
connecting link, as between the Cataehini and 
Platyehini. 

It is a commonly received doctrine, however, 
that the structural intervals between the various 
existing modifications of organic beings may be 
diminished, or even obliterated, if we take into 
account the long and varied succession of animals 
and plants which have preceded these now living 
and which are known to us only by their fossilized 
remains. How far this doctrine is well based, how 
far, on the other hand, as our knowledge at pres- 
ent stands, it is an overstatement of the real facts 
of the case, and an exaggeration of the conclusions 
fairly deducible from them, are points of grave im- 
portance, but into the discussion of which I do not, 

157 



158 HUMAN FOSSILS. m 

at present, propose to enter. It is enough that 
such a view of the relations of extinct to Hving 
beings has been propounded, to lead us to inquire, 
with anxiety, how far the recent discoveries of 
human remains in a fossil state bear out, or oppose, 
that view. 

I shall confine myself, in discussing this ques- 
tion, to those fragmentary Human skulls from the 
caves of Engis in the valley of the Meuse, in Bel- 
gium, and of the Neanderthal, near Diisseldorf, 
the geological relations of which have been ex- 
amined with so much care by Sir Charles Lyell; 
upon whose high authority I shall take it for 
granted, that the Engis skull belonged to a con- 
temporary of the Mammoth {Elephas primigenius) 
and of the woolly Ehinoceros (Rhinoceros tichor- 
hinus), with the bones of which it was found asso- 
ciated; and that the ^N'eanderthal skull is of great, 
though uncertain, antiquity. Whatever be the 
geological age of the latter skull, I conceive it is 
quite safe (on the ordinary principles of paleon- 
tological reasoning) to assume that the former 
takes us to, at least, the further side of the vague 
biological limit, which separates the present geo- 
logical epoch from that which immediately pre- 
ceded it. And there can be no doubt that the 
physical geography of Europe has changed won- 
derfully, since the bones of Men and Mammoths, 
Hyaenas and Ehinoceroses were washed pell-mell 
into the cave of Engis. 



in 



THE MAN OF ENGIS. 



159 



The skull from the cave of Engis was originally 
discovered by Professor Schmerling, and was de- 
scribed by him, together with other human re- 




Fig. 23.^The skull from the cave of Engis — viewed 
from the right side. One half the size of nature, a gla- 
bella, & occipital protuberance (a to 6 glabello-occipital 
line), c auditory foramen. 



mains disinterred at the same time, in his valuable 
work, " Eecherches sur les Ossemens fossiles decou- 
verts dans les Cavernes de la Province de Liege/' 



160 HUMAN FOSSILS. in 

published in 1833 (p. 59, et seq.), from which the 

following paragraphs are extracted, the precise ex- 
pressions of the author being, as far as possible, 
preserved. 

" In the first place, I must remark that these human 
remains, which are in my possession, are characterised, 
like the thousands of bones which I have lately been dis- 
interring, by the extent of the decomposition which they 
have undergone, which is precisely the same as that of the 
extinct species: all, with a few exceptions, are broken; 
some few are rounded, as is frequently found to be the 
case in fossil remains of other species. The fractures are 
vertical or oblique; none of them are eroded; their colour 
does not differ from that of other fossil bones, and varies 
from whitish yellow to blackish. All are lighter than re- 
cent bones, with the exception of those which have a cal- 
careous incrustation, and the cavities of which are filled 
with such matter. 

" The cranium which I have caused to be figured, Plate 
I, figs. 1, 2, is that of an old person. The sutures are be- 
ginning to be effaced: all the facial bones are wanting, 
and of the temporal bones only a fragment of that of 
the right side is preserved. 

" The face and the base of the cranium had been de- 
tached before the skull was deposited in the cave, for we 
were unable to find those parts, though the whole cavern 
was regularly searched. The cranium was met with at a 
depth of a metre and a half [five feet nearly] hidden 
under an osseous breccia, composed of the remains of 
small animals, and containing one rhinoceros' tusk, with 
several teeth of horses and of ruminants. This breccia, 
which has been spoken of above (p. 31), was a metre [3 J 
feet about] wide, and rose to the height of a metre and a 
half above the floor of the cavern, to the walls of which it 
adhered strongly. 



Ill THE ENGIS SKULL. 161 

" The earth which contained this human skull ex- 
hibited no trace of disturbance : teeth of rhinoceros, horse, 
hyasna, and bear, surrounded it on all sides. 

" The famous Blumenbach * has directed attention to 
the differences presented by the form and the dimensions 
of human crania of different races. This important work 
would have assisted us greatly, if the face, a part essen- 
tial for the determination of race, with more or less ac- 
curacy, had not been wanting in our fossil cranium. 

" We are convinced that even if the skull had been 
complete, it would not have been possible to pronounce, 
with certainty, upon a single specimen; for individual 
variations are so numerous in the crania of one and the 
same race, that one cannot, without laying one's self open 
to large chances of error, draw any inference from a single 
fragment of a cranium to the general form of the head to 
which it belonged. 

" Nevertheless, in order to neglect no point respecting 
the form of this fossil skull, we may observe that, from the 
first, the elongated and narrow form of the forehead at- 
tracted our attention. 

" In fact, the slight elevation of the frontal, its narrow- 
ness, and the form of the orbit, approximate it more 
nearly to the cranium of an Ethiopian than to that of an 
European; the elongated form and the produced occiput 
are also characters which we believe to be observable in 
our fossil cranium; but to remove all doubt upon that 
subject I have caused the contours of the cranium of an 
European and of an Ethiopian to be drawn and the fore- 
heads represented. Plate II, Figs. 1 and 2, and, in the 
same plate, Eigs. 3 and 4, will render the differences easily 
distinguishable; and a single glance at the figures will 
be more instructive than a long and wearisome descrip- 
tion. 

* Decas Collectionis suw craniorum diversarum gen- 
tium illustrata.—Gottingsd, 1790-1820. 
175 



162 HUMAN FOSSILS. in 

"At whatever conclusion we may arrive as to the 
origin of the man from whence this fossil skull proceeded, 
we may express an opinion without exposing ourselves to 
a fruitless controversy. Each may adopt the hypothesis 
which seems to him most probable: for my own part, I 
hold it to be demonstrated that this cranium has belonged 
to a person of limited intellectual faculties, and we con- 
elude thence that it belonged to a man of a low degree 
of civilization: a deduction which is borne out by con- 
trasting the capacity of the frontal with that of the oc- 
cipital region. 

" Another cranium of a young individual was discov- 
ered in the floor of the cavern beside the tooth of an ele- 
phant ; the skull was entire when found, but the moment it 
was lifted it fell into pieces, which I have not, as yet, been 
able to put together again. But I have represented the 
bones of the upper jaw, Plate I, Fig. 5. The state of the 
alveoli and the teeth, shows that the molars had not yet 
pierced the gum. Detached milk molars and some frag- 
ments of a human skull, proceed from this same place. 
The figure 3 represents a human superior incisor tooth, 
the size of which is truly remarkable.* 

" Figure 4 is a fragment of a superior maxillary bone, 
the molar teeth of which are worn down to the roots. 

" I possess two vertebrae, a first and last dorsal. 

"A clavicle of the left side (see Plate III, Fig. 1); 
although it belonged to a young individual, this bone 
shows that he must have been of great stature.f 

" Two fragments of the radius, badly preserved, do not 

* In a subsequent passage, Schmerling remarks upon 
the occurrence of an incisor tooth " of enormous size " 
from the caverns of Engihoul. The tooth figured is some- 
what long, but its dimensions do not appear to me to 
be otherwise remarkable. 

t The figure of this clavicle measures 5 inches from end 
to end in a straight line — so that the bone is rather a 
small than a large one. 



Ill THE ENGIS SKULL. 163 

indicate that the height of the man, to whom they be- 
longed, exceeded five feet and a half. 

" As to the remains of the upper extremities, those 
which are in my possession consist merely of a frag- 
ment of an ulna and of a radius (Plate III, Figs. 5 
and 6). 

" Figure 2, Plate IV, represents a metacarpal bone, 
contained in the breccia, of which we have spoken; it 
was found in the lower part above the cranium: add to 
this some metacarpal bones, found at very different dis- 
tances, half-a-dozen metatarsals, three phalanges of the 
hand, and one of the foot. 

" This is a brief enumeration of the remains of human 
bones collected in the cavern of Engis, which has pre- 
served for us the remains of three individuals, surrounded 
by those of the Elephant, of the Ehinoeeros, and of Car- 
nivora of species unknown in the present creation." 

From the cave of Engihoul, opposite that of 
Engis, on the right hank of the Meuse, Schmerling 
obtained the remains of three other individuals of 
Man, among which were only two fragments of 
parietal hones, hut many bones of the extremities. 
In one case, a broken fragment of- an ulna was 
soldered to a like fragment of a radius by stalag- 
mite, a condition frequently observed among the 
bones of the Cave Bear {Ursus spelceus), found in 
the Belgian caverns. 

It was in the cavern of Engis that Professor 
Schmerling found, incrusted with stalagmite and 
joined to a stone, the pointed bone implement, 
which he has figured in Fig. 7 of his Plate 
XXXVI, and worked flints were found by him in 



164 HUMAN FOSSILS. m 

all those Belgian caves^ which contained an abun- 
dance of fossil hones. 

A short letter from M. Geoffroy St. Hilaire, 
published in the " Comptes Eendus " of the Acad- 
emy of Sciences of Paris^ for July 2nd, 1838, speaks 
of a visit (and apparently a very hasty one) paid 
to the collection of Professor " Schermidt " (which 
is presumably a misprint for Schmerling) at Liege. 
The writer briefly criticises the drawings which 
illustrate Schmerling^s work, and affirms that the 
" human cranium is a little longer than it is repre- 
sented " in Schmerling^s figure. " The only other 
remark worth quoting is this: — 

" The aspect of the human bones differs little from 
that of the cave hones, with which we are familiar, and 
of which there is a considerable collection in the same 
place. With respect to their special forms, compared with 
those of the varieties of recent human crania, few certain 
conclusions can be put forward; for much greater dif- 
ferences exist between the diflFerent specimens of well- 
characterized varieties, than between the fossil cranium 
of Liege and that of one of those varieties selected as a 
term of comparison.'* 

Geoffrey St. Hilaire^s remarks are, it will be 
observed, little but an echo of the philosophic 
doubts of the describer and discoverer of the re- 
mains. As to the critique upon Schmerling's fig- 
ures, I find that the side view given by the latter 
is really about ^^-ths of an inch shorter than the 
original, and that the front view is diminished to 



m THE ENGIS SKULL, 165 

about the same extent. Otherwise the representa- 
tion is not, in any way, inaccurate, but corresponds 
very well with the cast which is in my possession. 

A piece of the occipital bone, which Schmerling 
seems to have missed, has since been fitted on to 
the rest of the cranium by an accomplished anat- 
omist, Dr. Spring of Liege, under whose direction 
an excellent plaster cast was made for Sir Charles 
Lyell. It is upon and from a duplicate of that cast 
that my own observations and the accompanying 
figures, the outlines of which are copied from very 
accurate Camera lucida drawings, by my friend 
Mr. Busk, reduced to one-half of the natural size, 
are made. 

As Professor Schmerling observes, the base of 
the skull is destroyed, and the facial bones are en- 
tirely absent; but the roof of the cranium, consist- 
ing of the frontal, parietal, and the greater part 
of the occipital bones, as far as the middle of the 
occipital foramen, is entire, or nearly so. The left 
temporal bone is wanting. Of the right temporal, 
the parts in the immediate neighbourhood of the 
auditory foramen, the mastoid process, and a con- 
siderable portion of the squamous element of the 
temporal are well preserved (Fig. 23). 

The lines of fracture which remain between the 
coadjusted pieces of the skull, and are faithfully 
displayed in Schmerling^s figure, are readily trace- 
able in the cast. The sutures are also discernible, 
but the complex disposition of their serrations, 




Fig. 24. — The Engis skull viewed from above (A) and in 
front {B). 



Ill THE ENGIS SKULL. 167 

shown in the figure, is not obvious in the cast. 
Though the ridges which give attachment to 
muscles are not excessively prominent, they are 
well marked, and taken together with the appar- 
ently well developed frontal sinuses, and the condi- 
tion of the sutures, leave no doubt on my mind 
that the skull is that of an adult, if not middle- 
aged man. 

The extreme length of the skull is 7.7 inches. 
Its extreme breadth, which corresponds very nearly 
with the interval between the parietal protuber- 
ances, is not more than 5.4 inches. The propor- 
tion of the length to the breadth is therefore very 
nearly as 100 to 70. If a line be drawn from the 
point at which the brow curves in towards the 
root of the nose, and which is called the " glabella " 
(a), (Fig. 23), to the occipital protuberance (b), and 
the distance to the highest point of the arch of the 
skull be measured perpendicularly from this line, 
it will be found to be 4.75 inches. Viewed from 
above. Fig. 24, A, the forehead presents an evenly 
rounded curve, and passes into the contour of the 
sides and back of the skull, which describes a toler- 
ably regular elliptical curve. 

The front view (Fig. 24, B) shows that the roof 
of the skull was very regularly and elegantly 
arched in the transverse direction, and that the 
transverse diameter was a little less below the pari- 
etal protuberances, than above them. The fore- 
head cannot be called narrow in relation to the rest 



168 HUMAN FOSSILS. in 

of the skull, nor can it be called a retreating fore- 
head; on the contrary, the antero-posterior con- 
tour of the skull is well arched, so that the dis- 
tance along that contour, from the nasal depres- 
sion to the occipital protuberance, measures about 
13.75 inches. The transverse arc of the skull, 
measured from one auditory foramen to the other, 
across the middle of the sagittal suture, is about 
13 inches. The sagittal suture itself is 5.5 inches 
long. 

The supraciliary prominences or brow-ridges 
(on each side of a, Fig 23) are well, but not ex- 
cessively, developed, and are separated by a median 
depression. Their principal elevation is disposed 
so obliquely that I judge them to be due to large 
frontal sinuses. 

If a line joining the glabella and the occipital 
protuberance (a, &, Fig. 23) be made horizontal, no 
part of the occipital region projects more than -^ih 
of an inch behind the posterior extremity of that 
line, and the upper edge of the auditory foramen 
(c) is almost in contact with a line drawn parallel 
with this upon the outer surface of the skull. 

A transverse line drawn from one auditory fora- 
men to the other traverses, as usual, the fore part of 
the occipital foramen. The capacity of the interior 
of this fragmentary skull has not been ascertained. 

The history of the Human remains from the 
cavern in the Neanderthal may best be given in 



m THE NEANDERTHAL MAN. 169 

the words of their original descriher, Dr. Schaaff- 
hausen,* as translated by Mr. Bnsk. 

" In the early part of the year 1857, a human skeleton 
was discovered in a limestone cave in the Neanderthal, 
near Hochdal, between Diisseldorf and Elberfeld. Of this, 
however, I was unable to procure more than a plaster 
cast of the cranium, taken at Elberfeld, from which I 
drew u.p an account of its remarkable conformation, which 
was, in the first instance, read on the 4th of February, 
1857, at the meeting of the Lower Rhine Medical and 
Natural History Society, at Bonn.f Subsequently Dr. 
Fuhlrott, to whom science is indebted for the preservation 
of these bones, which were not at first regarded as human, 
and into whose possession they afterwards came, brought 
the cranium from Elberfeld to Bonn, and entrusted it to 
me for more accurate anatomical examination. At the 
General Meeting of the Natural History Society of Prus- 
sian Rhineland and Westphalia, at Bonn, on the 2nd of 
June, 1857,1 Dr. Fuhlrott himself gave a full account of 
the locality, and of the circumstances under which the 
discovery was made. He was of opinion that the bones 
might be regarded as fossil ; and in coming to this conclu- 
sion, he laid especial stress upon the existence of dendritic 
deposits, with which their surface was covered, and which 
were first noticed upon them by Professor Mayer. To this 
communication I appended a brief report on the results 
of my anatomical examination of the bones. The conclu- 

* On the Crania of the most Ancient Races of Man. — 
By Professor D. Schaaffhausen, of Bonn. (From Miiller's 
ArcMv., 1858, p. 453.) With Remarks, and original Fig- 
ures, taken from a Cast of the Neanderthal Cranium. By 
George Busk, F.R.S., &c. Natural History Review, April, 
1861. 

t Yerhandl. d. NaturMst. Vereins der preuss. Rhein- 
lande und Westphalens., xiv. — Bonn, 1857. 

tlh. Correspondenzblatt. No. 2. 



170 HUMAN FOSSILS. m 

sions at which I arrived were : 1st. That the extraordinary 
form of the skull was due to a natural conformation hith- 
erto not known to exist, even in the most barbarous races. 
2nd. That these remarkable human remains belonged to 
a period antecedent to the time of the Celts and Germans, 
and were in all probability derived from one of the wild 
races of North-western Europe, spoken of by Latin 
writers; and which were encountered as autochthones by 
the German immigrants. And 3rdly. That it was beyond 
doubt that these human relics were traceable to a period 
at which the latest animals of the diluvium still existed; 
but that no proof of this assumption, nor consequently of 
their so-termed fossil condition, was afforded by the cir- 
cumstances under which the bones were discovered. 

" As Dr. Fuhlrott has not yet published his description 
of these circumstances, I borrow the following account of 
them from one of his letters. ' A small cave or grotto, 
high enough to admit a man, and about 15 feet deep from 
the entrance, which is 7 or 8 feet wide, exists in the south- 
ern wall of the gorge of the Neanderthal, as it is termed, 
at a distance of about 100 feet from the Diissel, and about 
60 feet above the bottom of the valley. In its earlier and 
uninjured condition, this cavern opened upon a narrow 
plateau lying in front of it, and from which the rocky wall 
descended almost perpendicidarly into the river. It could 
be reached, though with difficulty, from above. The un- 
even floor was covered to a thickness of 4 or 5 feet with a 
deposit of mud, sparingly intermixed with rounded frag- 
ments of chert. In the removing of this deposit, the bones 
were discovered. The skull was first noticed, placed near- 
est to the entrance of the cavern; and further in, the 
other bones, lying in the same horizontal plane. Of this 
I was assured, in the most positive terms, by two la- 
bourers who were employed to clear out the grotto, and 
who were questioned by me on the spot. At first no idea 
was entertained of the bones being human; and it was 



Ill THE NEANDERTHAL MAN. 171 

not till several weeks after their discovery that they were 
recognised as such by me, and placed in security. 

" ' But, as the importance of the discovery was not 
at the time perceived, the labourers were very careless in 
the collecting, and secured chiefly only the larger bones; 
and to this circumstance it may be attributed that frag- 
ments merely of the probably perfect skeleton came into 
my possession.' 

*' My anatomical examination of these bones afforded 
the following results: — 

" The cranium is of unusual size, and of a long-ellipti- 
cal form. A most remarkable peculiarity is at once obvi- 
ous in the extraordinary development of the frontal si- 
nuses, owing to which the superciliary ridges, which coal- 
esce completely in the middle, are rendered so prominent, 
that the frontal bone exhibits a considerable hollow or 
depression above, or rather behind them, whilst a deep de- 
pression is also formed in the situation of the root of the 
nose. The forehead is narrow and low, though the middle 
and hinder portions of the cranial arch are well developed. 
Unfortunately, the fragment of the skull that has been 
preserved consists only of the portion situated above the 
roof of the orbits and the superior occipital ridges, which 
are greatly developed, and almost conjoined so as to form 
a horizontal eminence. It includes almost the whole of 
the frontal bone, both parietals, a small part of the 
squamous and the upper-third of the occipital. The re- 
cently fractured surfaces show that the skull was broken 
at the time of its disinterment. The cavity holds 16,876 
grains of water, whence its cubical contents may be esti- 
mated at 57.64 inches, or 1033.24 cubic centimetres. In 
making this estimation, the water is supposed to stand on 
a level with the orbital plate of the frontal, with the deep- 
est notch in the squamous margin of the parietal, and 
with the superior semicircular ridges of the occipital. 
Estimated in dried millet-seed, the contents equalled 31 
ounces, Prussian Apothecaries' weight. The semicircular 



172 HUMAN FOSSILS. in 

line indicating the upper boundary of the attachment of 
the temporal muscle, though not very strongly marked, 
ascends nevertheless to more than half the height of the 
parietal bone. On the right superciliary ridge is observ- 
able an oblique furrow or depression, indicative of an in- 
jury received during life.* The coronal and sagittal su- 
tures are on the exterior nearly closed, and on the inside so 
completely ossified as to have left no traces whatever, whilst 
the lambdoidal remains quite open. The depressions for 
the Pacchionian glands are deep and numerous ; and there 
is an unusually deep vascular groove immediately behind 
the coronal suture, which, as it terminates in a foramen, 
no doubt transmitted a vena emissaria. The course of 
the frontal suture is indicated externally by a slight 
ridge; and where it joins the coronal, this ridge rises into 
a small protuberance. The course of the sagittal suture 
is grooved, and above the angle of the occipital bone the 
parietals are depressed. 

mm.t inches. 

The length of the skull from the 
nasal process of the frontal over 
the vertex to the superior semi- 
circular lines of the occipital 
measures 303 (300) = 12.0". 

Gircuraference over the orbital 
ridges and the superior semicir- 
cular lines of the occipital ... 590 (590) = 23.37" or 23". 

"Width of the frontal from the mid- 
dle of the temporal line on one 
side to the same point on the op- 
posite 104 (114) = 4.1''-4.5". 



* This, Mr. Busk has pointed out, is probably the 
notch for the frontal nerve. 

t The numbers in parentheses are those which I should 
assign to the different measures, as taken from the plaster 
cast. — G. B. 



Ill THE NEANDERTHAL MAN. 173 

mm. inches. 

Length of the frontal from the 
nasal process to the coronal su- 
ture 133 (125) = 5.25''-5". 

Extreme width of the frontal si- 
nuses 25 (23) = 1.0"-0.9". 

Vertical height above a line join- 
ing the deepest notches in the 
squamous border of the parietals 70 = 2.75". 

Width of hinder part of skull from 
one parietal protuberance to the 
other 138 (150) = 5.4"-5.9''. 

Distance from the upper angle of 
the occipital to the superior 
semicircular lines 51 (60) = 1.9''-2.4". 

Thickness of the bone at the parie- 
tal protuberance 8. 

at the angle of the occipital 9. 

at the superior semicircular 

line of the occipital ...... 10 = 0.3". 

"Besides the cranium, the following bones have been 
secured: — 

" 1, Both thigh-bones, perfect. These, like the skull, 
and all the other bones, are characterized by their unusual 
thickness, and the great development of all the elevations 
and depressions for the attachment of muscles. In the 
Anatomical Museum at Bonn, under the designation of 
* Giant's bones,' are some recent thigh-bones, with which 
in thickness the foregoing pretty nearly correspond, al- 
though they are shorter. 

Giant's bones. Fossil bones, 
mm. inches. mm. inches. 

Length 542 = 21.4" ... 438 = 17.4". 

Diameter of head of femur 54 = 2.14" ... 53 = 2.0". 
Diameter of lower articular end, 
from one condyle to the 

other 89 = 3.5" ... 87 = 3.4". 

Diameter of femur in the middle . 33 = 1.2" ... 30 = 1.1". 



174 HUMAN FOSSILS. ni 

" 2. A perfect right humerus, whose size shows that 
it belongs to the thigh-bones. 

mta. inches. 

Length 312 = 12.3'. 

Thickness in the middle. . 26 = 1.0". 
Diameter of head .... 49 = 1.9". 

"Also a perfect right radius of corresponding dimen- 
sions and the upper-third of a right ulna corresponding 
to the humerus and radius. 

" 3. A left humerus, of which the upper- third is want- 
ing, and which is so much slenderer than the right as ap- 
parently to belong to a distinct individual; a left ulna, 
which, though complete, is pathologically deformed, the 
coronoid process being so much enlarged by bony growth, 
that flexure of the elbow beyond a right angle must have 
been impossible; the anterior fossa of the humerus for 
the reception of the coronoid process being also filled up 
with a similar bony growth. At the same time, the ole- 
cranon is curved strongly downwards. As the bone pre- 
sents no sign of rachitic degeneration, it may be sup- 
posed that an injury sustained during life was the cause 
of the anchylosis. When the left ulna is compared with 
the right radius, it might at first sight be concluded that 
the bones respectively belonged to different individuals, 
the ulna being more than half an inch too short for articu- 
lation with a corresponding radius. But it is clear that 
this shortening, as well as the attenuation of the left hu- 
merus, are both consequent upon the pathological condi- 
tion above described. 

" 4. A left ilium, almost perfect, and belonging to the 
femur; a fragment of the right scapula; the anterior ex- 
tremity of a rib of the right side; and the same part of 
a rib of the left side ; the hinder part of a rib of the right 
side ; and, lastly, two hinder portions and one middle por- 
tion of ribs which, from their unusually rounded shape, 
and abrupt curvature, more resemble the ribs of a car- 



Ill THE NEANDERTHAL MAN. 175 

nivorous animal than those of a man. Dr. H. v. Meyer, 
however, to whose judgment I defer, will not venture to 
declare them to be ribs of any animal; and it only re- 
mains to suppose that this abnormal condition has arisen 
from an unusually powel-ful development of the thoracic 
muscles. 

" The bones adhere strongly to the tongue, although, 
as proved by the use of hydrochloric acid, the greater part 
of the cartilage is still retained in them, which appears, 
however, to have undergone that transformation into 
gelatine which has been observed by v. Bibra in fossil 
bones. The surface of all the bones is in many spots 
covered with minute black specks, which, more especially 
under a lens, are seen to be formed of very delicate 
dendrites. These deposits, which were first observed on 
the bones by Dr. Mayer, are most distinct on the inner 
surface of the cranial bones. They consist of a ferrugi- 
nous compound, and, from their black colour, may be sup- 
posed to contain manganese. Similar dendritic forma- 
tions also occur, not unfrequently, on laminated rocks, 
and are usually found in minute fissures and cracks. At 
the meeting of the Lower Rhine Society at Bonn^ on the 
1st April, 1857, Prof. Mayer stated that he had noticed 
in the museum of Poppelsdorf similar dendritic crystal- 
lizations on several fossil bones of animals, and particu- 
larly on those of Ursus spelceus, but still more abun- 
dantly and beautifully displayed on the fossil bones and 
teeth of Equus adamiticus, ElepJias primigenius, &c., 
from the caves of Bolve and Sundwig. Faint indications 
of similar dendrites were visible in a Roman skull from 
Siegburg; whilst other ancient skulls, which had lain for 
centuries in the earth, presented no trace of them.* I 
am indebted to H. v. Meyer for the following remarks on 
this subject: — 

* Verh. des NaturMst. Vereins in Bonn, xiv. 1857. 



176 HUMAN FOSSILS. m 

" ' The incipient formation of dendritic deposits, which 
were formerly regarded as a sign of a truly fossil condi- 
tion, is interesting. It has even been supposed that in 
diluvial deposits the presence of dendrites might be re- 
garded as affording a certain mark of distinction between 
bones mixed with the diluvium at a somewhat later period 
and the true diluvial relics, to which alone it was supposed 
that these deposits were confined. But I have long been 
convinced that neither can the absence of dendrites be 
regarded as indicative of recent age, nor their presence 
as sufficient to establish the great antiquity of the objects 
upon which they occur. I have myself noticed upon 
paper, which could scarcely be more than a year old, den- 
dritic deposits, which could not be distinguished from 
those on fossil bones. Thus I possess a dog's skull from 
the Roman colony of the neighbouring Heddersheim, 
Castrum Eadrianum, which is in no way distinguishable 
from the fossil bones from the Frankish caves ; it presents 
the same colour, and adheres to the tongue just as they 
do; so that this character also, which, at a former meet- 
ing of German naturalists at Bonn, gave rise to amusing 
scenes between Buckland and Schmerling, is no longer of 
any value. In disputed cases, therefore, the condition of 
the bone can scarcely afford the means for determining 
with certainty whether it be fossil, that is to say, whether it 
belong to geological antiquity or to the historical period/ 

" As we cannot now look upon the primitive world as 
representing a wholly different condition of things, from 
which no transition exists to the organic life of the present 
time, the designation of fossil, as applied to a bone, has 
no longer the sense it conveyed in the time of Cuvier. 
Sufficient grounds exist for the assumption that man co- 
existed with the animals found in the diluvium; and many 
a barbarous race may, before all historical time, have dis- 
appeared, together with the animals of the ancient world, 
whilst the races whose organization is improved have con- 



m THE NEANDERTHAL MAN. 177 

tinued the genus. The bones which form the subject of 
this paper present characters which, although not decisive 
as regards a geological epoch, are, nevertheless, such as 
indicate a very high antiquity. It may also be remarked 
that, common as is the occurrence of diluvial animal bones 
in the muddy deposits of caverns, such remains have not 
hitherto been met with in the caves of the Neanderthal; 
and that the bones, which were covered by a deposit of 
mud not more than four or five feet thick, and without 
any protective covering of stalagmite, have retained the 
greatest part of their organic substance. 

" These circumstances might be adduced against the 
probability of a geological antiquity. Nor should we be 
justified in regarding the cranial conformation as perhaps 
representing the most savage primitive type of the human 
race, since crania exist among living savages, which, 
though not exhibiting such a remarkable conformation of 
the forehead, which gives the skull somewhat the aspect 
of that of the large apes, still in other respects, as for in- 
stance in the greater depth of the temporal fossae, the 
crest-like, prominent temporal ridges, and a generally less 
capacious cranial cavity, exhibit an equally low stage of 
development. There is no reason for supposing that the 
deep frontal hollow is due to any artificial flattening, such 
as is practised in various modes by barbarous nations in 
the Old and New World. The skull is quite symmetrical, 
and shows no indication of counter-pressure at the occi- 
put, whilst, according to Morton, in the Flat-heads of the 
Columbia, the frontal and parietal bones are always un- 
symmetrical. Its conformation exhibits the sparing de- 
velopment of the anterior part of the head which has 
been so often observed in very ancient crania, and affords 
one of the most striking proofs of the influence of culture 
and civilization on the form of the human skull." 

In a subsequent passage, Dr. Schaaffhausen re- 
marks: 

176 



178 HUMAN FOSSILS. in 

"There is no reason whatever for regarding the un- 
usual development of the frontal sinuses in the remark- 
able skull from the Neanderthal as an individual or 
pathological deformity; it is unquestionably a typical 
race-character, and is physiologically connected with the 
uncommon thickness of the other bones of the skeleton, 
which exceeds by about one-half the usual proportions. 
This expansion of the frontal sinuses, which are append- 
ages of the air-passages, also indicates an unusual force 
and power of endurance in the movements of the body, 
as may be concluded from the size of all the ridges and 
processes for the attachment of the muscles or bones. That 
this conclusion may be drawn from the existence of large 
frontal sinuses, and a prominence of the lower frontal 
region, is confirmed in many ways by other observations. 
By the same characters, according to Pallas, the wild horse 
is distinguished from the domesticated, and, according to 
Cuvier, the fossil cave-bear from every recent species of 
bear, whilst, according to Eoulin, the pig, which has be- 
come wild in America, and regained a resemblance to the 
wild boar, is thus distinguished from the same animal in 
the domesticated state, as is the chamois from the goat; 
and, lastly, the bull-dog, which is characterised by its 
large bones and strongly-developed muscles from every 
other kind of dog. The estimation of the facial angle, the 
determination of which, according to Professor Owen, is 
also difficult in the great apes, owing to the very promi- 
nent supra-orbital ridges, in the present case is rendered 
still more difficult from the absence both of the auditory 
opening and of the nasal spine. But if the proper hori- 
zontal position of the skull be taken from the remaining 
portions of the orbital plates, and the ascending line made 
to touch the surface of the frontal bone behind the promi- 
nent supra-orbital ridges, the facial angle is not found to 
exceed 56°.* Unfortunately, no portions of the facial 

* Estimating the facial angle in the way suggested, on 
the cast I should place it at 64° to 67°.— G. B. 



Ill THE NEANDERTHAL MAN. 179 

bones, whose conformation is so decisive as regards the 
form and expression of the head, have been preserved. 
The cranial capacity, compared with the uncommon 
strength of the corporeal frame, would seem to indicate 
a small cerebral development. The skull, as it is, holds 
about 31 ounces of millet-seed; and as, from the propor- 
tionate size of the wanting bones, the whole cranial cav- 
ity should have about 6 ounces more added, the contents, 
were it perfect, may be taken at 37 ounces. Tiedemann 
assigns, as the cranial contents in the Negro, 40, 38, and 
35 ounces. The cranium holds rather more than 36 ounces 
of water which corresponds to a capacity of 1033.24 cubic 
centimetres. Huschke estimates the cranial contents of 
a Negress at 1127 cubic centimetres; of an old Negro at 
1146 cubic centimetres. The capacity of the Malay skulls, 
estimated by water, equalled 36, 33 ounces, whilst in the 
diminutive Hindoos it falls to as little as 27 ounces." 

After comparing the i*^eandertlial cranmm with 
many others, ancient and modern, Professor 
Schaaffhausen concludes thus: — 

" But the human bones and cranium from the Neander- 
thal exceed all the rest in those peculiarities of conforma- 
tion which lead to the conclusion of their belonging to a 
barbarous and saivage race. Whether the cavern in which 
they were found, unaccompanied with any trace of human 
art, were the place of their interment, or whether, like the 
bones of extinct animals elsewhere, they had been washed 
into it, they may still be regarded as the most ancient 
memorial of the early inhabitants of Europe." 

Mr. Busk, the translator of Dr. Schaaffhausen's 
paper, has enabled us to form a very vivid con- 
ception of the degraded character of the Nean- 
derthal skull, by placing side by side with its out- 



180 HUMAN FOSSILS. iii 

line, that of the skull of a Chimpanzee, drawn to 
the same absolute size. 

Some time after the publication of the trans- 
lation of Professor Schaaffhausen^s Memoir, I was 
led to study the cast of the Neanderthal cranium 
with more attention than I had previously be- 
stowed upon it, in consequence of wishing to sup- 
ply Sir Charles Lyell with a diagram, exhibiting 
the special peculiarities of this skull, as compared 
with other human skulls. In order to do this it 
was necessary to identify, with precision, those 
points in the skulls compared which corresponded 
anatomically. Of these points, the glabella was 
obvious enough; but when I had distinguished an- 
other, defined by the occipital protuberance and 
superior semicircular line, and had placed the out- 
line of the Neanderthal skull against that of the 
Engis skull, in such a position that the glabella 
and occipital protuberance of both were intersected 
by the same straight line, the difference was so 
vast and the flattening of the Neanderthal skull 
so prodigious (compare Figs. 23 and 25 A), that I 
at first imagined I must have fallen into some 
error. And I was the more inclined to suspect 
this, as, in ordinary human skulls, the occipital 
protuberance and superior semicircular curved 
line on the exterior of the occiput correspond 
pretty closely with the "lateral sinuses" and the 
line of attachment of the tentorium internally. 
But on the tentorium rests, as I have said in the 



m THE NEANDERTHAL MAN. 181 

preceding Essay, the posterior lobe of the brain; 
and hence, the occipital protuberance, and the 
curved line in question, indicate, approximately, 
the lower limits of that lobe. Was it possible for 
a human being to have the brain thus flattened 
and depressed; or, on the other hand, had the 
muscular ridges shifted their position? In order 
to solve these doubts, and to decide the question 
whether the great supraciliary projections did, or 
did not, arise from the development of the frontal 
sinuses, I requested Sir Charles Lyell to be so good 
as to obtain for me from Dr. Fuhlrott, the pos- 
sessor of the skull, answers to certain queries, and 
if possible a cast, or at any rate drawings, or photo- 
graphs, of the interior of the skull. 

Dr. Fuhlrott replied, with a courtesy and readi- 
ness for which I am infinitely indebted to him, to 
my inquiries, and furthermore sent three excellent 
photographs. One of these gives a side view of the 
skull, and from it Fig. 25 A has been shaded. The 
second (Fig. 26 A) exhibits the wide openings of 
the frontal sinuses upon the inferior surface of 
the frontal part of the skull, into which. Dr. Fuhl- 
rott writes, " a probe may be introduced to the 
depth of an inch," and demonstrates the great 
extension of the thickened supraciliary ridges be- 
yond the cerebral cavity. The third, lastly (Fig. 
26 B), exhibits the edge and the interior of the 
posterior, or occipital, part of the skull, and shows 
very clearly the two depressions for the lateral si- 



182 



HUMAN FOSSILS. 



in 




Fig. 25. — The skull from the Neanderthal cavern. A, 
The outlines from camera lucida drawings, one half the 
from Dr. Fuhlrott's photographs, a glabella; & occipital 

IiTises, sweeping inwards towards the middle line of 
the roof of the skull, to form the longitudinal sinus. 
It was clear, therefore, that I had not erred in 



ni 



THE NEANDERTHAL MAN. 



183 



my interpretation, and that the posterior lobe of 
the brain of the Neandertlial man must have been 
as much flattened as I suspected it to be. 

In truth, the Neanderthal cranium has most 
extraordinary characters. It has an extreme 




side, B, front, and C, top view. One half the natural size, 
natural size, by Mr. Busk: the details from the cast and 
protuberance; d lambdoidal suture. 

length of 8 inches, while its breadth is only 5.75 
inches, or, in other words, its length is to its 
breadth as 100 : 72. It is exceedingly depressed. 



184 



HUMAN FOSSILS. 



m 



measuring only about 3.4 inches from the glabello- 
occipital line to the vertex. The longitudinal arc. 





Fig. 26. — Drawings from Dr. Fuhlrott's photographs 
of parts of the interior of the Neanderthal cranium. A 
view of the under and inner surface of the frontal region, 
showing the inferior apertures of the frontal sinuses {a). 
B corresponding view of the occipital region of the skull, 
showing the impressions of the lateral sinuses (aa). 

measured in the same way as in the Engis skull, 
is 12 inches; the transverse arc cannot be exactly 



Ill THE NEANDERTHAL MAN. 185 

ascertained, in consequence of the absence of the 
temporal bones, but was probably about the same, 
and certainly exceeded lOJ inches. The horizontal 
circumference is 23 inches. But this great circum- 
ference arises largely from the vast development 
of the supraciliary ridges, though the perimeter 
of the brain case itself is not small. The large 
supraciliary ridges give the forehead a far more 
retreating appearance than its internal contour 
would bear out. 

To an anatomical eye, the posterior part of the 
skull is even more striking than the anterior. The 
occipital protuberance occupies the extreme pos- 
terior end of the skull, when the glabello-occipital 
line is made horizontal, and so far from any part 
of the occipital region extending beyond it, this 
region of the skull slopes obliquely upward and 
forward, so that the lambdoidal suture is situated 
well upon the upper surface of the cranium. At 
the same time, notwithstanding the great length 
of the skull, the sagittal suture is remarkably short 
(4J inches), and the squamosal suture is very 
straight. 

In reply to my questions Dr. Fuhlrott writes 
that the occipital bone " is in a state of perfect 
preservation as far as the upper semicircular line, 
which is a very strong ridge, linear at its extremi- 
ties, but enlarging towards the middle, where it 
forms two ridges (bourrelets), united by a linear 
continuation, which is slightly depressed in the 
middle." 



186 HUMAN FOSSILS. in 

" Below the left ridge the hone exhihits an oh- 
liquely inclined surface, six lines (French) long, 
and twelve lines wide.'^ 

This last mnst he the surface, the contour of 
which is shown in Fig. 25 A, helow h. It is par- 
ticularly interesting, as it suggests that, notwith- 
standing the flattened condition of the occiput, 
the posterior cerehral lohes must have projected 
considerahly heyond the cerehellum, and as it 
constitutes one among several points of similarity 
between the Neanderthal cranium and certain 
Australian skulls. 

Such are the two best known forms of human 
cranium, which have been found in what may be 
fairly termed a fossil state. Can either be shown 
to fill up or diminish, to any appreciable extent, 
the structural interval which exists between Man 
and the man-like apes? Or, on the other hand, 
does neither depart more widely from the average 
structure of the human cranium, than normally 
formed skulls of men are known to do at the 
present day? 

It is impossible to form any opinion on these 
questions, without some preliminary acquaintance 
with the range of variation exhibited by human 
structure in general — a subject which has been but 
imperfectly studied, while even of what is known, 
my limits will necessarily allow me to give only a 
very imperfect sketch. 



Ill THE NEANDERTHAL MAN. 187 

The student of anatomy is perfectly well aware 
that there is not a single organ of the human body 
the structure of which does not vary, to a greater 
or less extent, in different individuals. The skele- 
ton varies in the proportions, and even to a certain 
extent in the connections, of its constituent bones. 
The muscles which move the bones vary largely 
in their attachments. The varieties in the mode 
of distribution of the arteries are carefully classi- 
fied, on account of the practical importance of a 
knowledge of their shiftings to the surgeon. The 
characters of the brain vary immensely, nothing 
being less constant than the form and size of the 
cerebral hemispheres, and the richness of the con- 
volutions upon their surface, while the most 
changeable structures of all in the human brain are 
exactly those on which the unwise attempt has 
been made to base the distinctive characters of 
humanity, viz. the posterior cornu of the lateral 
ventricle, the hippocampus minor, and the degree 
of projection of the posterior lobe beyond the cere- 
bellum. Finally, as all the world knows, the hair 
and skin of human beings may present the most 
extraordinary diversities in colour and in texture. 

So far as our present knowledge goes, the ma- 
jority of the structural varieties to which allusion 
is here made, are individual. The ape-like ar- 
rangement of certain muscles which is occasion- 
ally met with * in the white races of mankind, is 

* See an excellent Essay by Mr. Church on the Myology 
of the Orang, in the "Natural History Review for 1861. 




Fig. 27. — Side and front views of the round and or- 
thognathous skull of a Calmuck after Von Baer. One- 
third the natural size. 



Ill VAEIATIONS: HUMAN SKULL. 189 

not known to be more common among Negroes 
or Australians: nor because the brain of the 
Hottentot Venus was found to be smoother, to 
have its convolutions more symmetrically disposed, 
and to be, so far, more ape-like than that of ordi- 
nary Europeans, are we justified in concluding a 
like condition of the brain to prevail universally 
among the lower races of mankind, however prob- 
able that conclusion may be. 

We are, in fact, sadly wanting in information 
respecting the disposition of the soft and de- 
structible organs of every Eace of Mankind but 
our own; and even of the skeleton, our Museums 
are lamentably deficient in every part but the 
cranium. Skulls enough there are, and since the 
time when Blumenbach and Camper first called 
attention to the marked and singular differences 
which they exhibit, skull collecting and skull meas- 
uring has been a zealously pursued branch of 
Natural History, and the results obtained have 
been arranged and classified by various writers, 
among whom the late active and able Retzius must 
always be the first named. 

Human skulls have been found to differ from 
one another, not merely in their absolute size and 
in the absolute capacity of the brain case, but in 
the proportions which the diameters of the latter 
bear to one another; in the relative size of the 
bones of the face (and more particularly of the 
jaws and teeth) as compared with those of the 



190 HUMAN FOSSILS. m 

skull; in the degree to which the upper jaw (which 
is of course followed by the lower) is thrown back- 
wards and downwards under the fore part of the 
brain case^ or forwards and upwards in front of 
and beyond it. They differ further in the relations 
of the transverse diameter of the face, taken 
through the cheek bones, to the transverse diam- 
eter of the skull; in the more rounded or more 
gable-like form of the roof of the skull, and in the 
degree to which the hinder part of the skull is 
flattened or projects beyond the ridge, into and 
below which the muscles of the neck are inserted. 
In some skulls the brain case may be said to be 
" round,'' the extreme length not exceeding the 
extreme breadth by a greater proportion than 100 
to 80, while the difference may be much less.* 
Men possessing such skulls were termed by 
Eetzius " Ir achy cephalic" and the skull of a 
Calmuck, of which a front and side view (reduced 
outline copies of which are given in Fig. 27) are 
depicted by Von Baer in his excellent " Crania 
selecta," affords a very admirable sample of that 
kind of skull. Other skulls, such as that of a 
Negro copied in Fig. 28 from Mr. Busk's " Crania 
typica," have a very different, greatly elongated 
form, and may be termed " oUong.'' In this skull 
the extreme length is to the extreme breadth as 
100 to not more than 67, and the transverse di- 
ameter of the human skull may fall below even 

* In no normal human skull does the breadth of the 
brain case exceed its length. 




Fig. 28. — Oblong and prognathous skull of a Negro 3 
side and front views. One-third of the natural size. 



192 HUMAN FOSSILS. in 

this proportion. People having such skulls were 
called by Eetzius " dolichocephalic." 

The most cursory glance at the side views of 
these two skulls will suffice to prove that they 
differ, in another respect, to a very striking ex- 
tent. The profile of the face of the Calmuck is 
almost vertical, the facial hones being thrown 
downwards and under the fore part of the skull. 
The profile of the face of the Negro, on the other 
hand, is singularly inclined, the front part of the 
jaws projecting far forward beyond the level of the 
fore part of the skull. In the former case the skull 
is said to be " orthognathous " or straight- jawed; in 
the latter, it is called " prognathous" a term which 
has been rendered, with more force than elegance, 
by the Saxon equivalent, — " snouty.^^ 

Various methods have been devised in order to 
express with some accuracy the degree of prog- 
nathism or orthognathism of any given skull; most 
of these methods being essentially modifications 
of that devised by Peter Camper, in order to attain 
what he called the " facial angle." 

But a little consideration will show that any 
" facial angle " that has been devised, can be com- 
petent to express the structural modifications in- 
volved in prognathism and orthognathism, only in 
a rough and general sort of way. For the lines, 
the intersection of which forms the facial angle, 
are drawn through points of the skull, the position 
of each of which is modified by a number of cir- 



Ill VARIATIONS: HUMAN SKULL. 193 

cumstances, so that the angle obtained is a complex 
resultant of all these eircnmstances, and is not the 
expression of any one definite organic relation of 
the parts of the skull. 

I have arrived at the conviction that no com- 
parison of crania is worth very much that is not 
founded upon the establishment of a relatively 
fixed base line, to which the measurements, in all 
cases, must be referred. Nor do I think it is a 
very difficult matter to decide what that base line 
should be. The parts of the skull, like those of 
the rest of the animal framework, are developed 
in succession: the base of the skull is formed be- 
fore its sides and roof; it is converted into cartilage 
earlier and more completely than the sides and 
roof: and the cartilaginous base ossifies, and be- 
comes soldered into one piece long before the roof. 
I conceive then that the base of the skull may be 
demonstrated developmentally to be its relatively 
fixed part, the roof and sides being relatively 
movable. 

The same truth is exemplified by the study of 
the modifications which the skull undergoes in 
ascending from the lower animals up to man. 

In such a mammal as a Beaver (Fig. 29), a line 
(a h) drawn through the bones, termed basiocci- 
pital, basisphenoid, and presphenoid, is very long 
in proportion to the extreme length of the cavity 
which contains the cerebral hemispheres (gh). 
The plane of the occipital foramen (& c) forms a 
177 



BtdVlT. 



lemur. 




Fig. 29. — Longitudinal and vertical sections of the 
skulls of a Beaver (Castor Canadensis), a Lemur (L. 
Catta), and a Baboon (Cynocephalus Papio), ah, the 
basicranial axis ; h c, the occipital plane ; i T, the tentorial 
plane; ad, the olfactory plane; f e, the basifaeial axis; 
cl) a, occipital angle ; T ia, tentorial angle ; dab, olfac- 
tory angle; e f h, craniofacial angle; g h, extreme length 
of the cavity which lodges the cerebral hemispheres or 
" cerebral length." The length of the basicranial axis as 
to this length, or, in other words, the proportional length 



Ill MAMMALIAK SKULLS. I95 

of the line g h to that of ab taken as 100, in the three 
skulls, is as follows: — Beaver, 70 to 100; Lemur, 119 to 
100; Baboon, 144 to 100. In an adult male Gorilla the 
cerebral length is as 170 to the basicranial axis taken 
as 100, in the Negro (Fig. 30) as 236 to 100. In the 
Constantinople skull (Fig. 30) it is as 266 to 100. The 
difference between the highest Ape's skull and the lowest 
Man's is therefore very strikingly brought out by these 
measurements. 

In the diagram of the Baboon's skull the dotted lines 
d^ (P, &c., give the angles of the Lemur's and Beaver's skull, 
as laid down upon the basicranial axis of the Baboon. The 
line a b has the same length in each diagram. 

slightly acute angle with this " basicranial axis/' 
while the plane of the tentorium (i T) is inclined 
at rather more than 90° to the " basicranial axis "; 
and so is the plane of the perforated plate {a d), 
by which the filaments of the olfactory nerve 
leave the skull. Again, a line drawn through the 
axis of the face, between the bones called ethmoid 
and vomer — the " basifacial axis " (/. e.) forms an 
exceedingly obtuse angle, where, when produced, 
it cuts the " basicranial axis." 

If the angle made by the line & c with a h, be 
called the " occipital angle," and the angle made 
by the line a d with ah he termed the " olfactory 
angle " and that made by t T with a h the " ten- 
torial angle " then all these, in the mammal in 
question, are nearly right angles, varying between 
80° and 110°. The angle e / &, or that made by the 
cranial with the facial axis, and which may be 
termed the " craniofacial angle," is extremely ob- 
tuse, amounting, in the case of the Beaver, to at 
least 150°. 



X96 HUMAN FOSSILS. ni 

But if a series of sections of mammalian skulls, 
intermediate between a Rodent and a Man (Fig. 
29), be examined, it will be found that in the 
higher crania the basicranial axis becomes shorter 
relatively to the cerebral length; that the " olfac- 
tory angle " and " occipital angle ^' become more 
obtuse; and that the " craniofacial angle,'^ be- 
comes more acute by the bending down, as it were, 
of the facial axis upon the cranial axis. At the 
same time, the roof of the cranium becomes more 
and more arched, to allow of the increasing height 
of the cerebral hemispheres, which is eminently 
characteristic of man, as well as of that backward 
extension, beyond the cerebellum, which reaches 
its maximum in the South American Monkeys. 
So that, at last, in the human skull (Fig. 30), the 
cerebral length is between twice and thrice as 
great as the length of the basicranial axis; the ol- 
factory plane is 20° or 30° on the under side of 
that axis; the occipital angle, instead of being less 
than 90°, is as much as 150° or 160°; the cranio- 
facial angle may be 90° or less, and the vertical 
height of the skull may have a large proportion to 
its length. 

It will be obvious, from an inspection of the 
diagrams, that the basicranial axis is, in the 
ascending series of Mammalia, a relatively fixed 
line, on which the bones of the sides and roof of the 
cranial cavity, and of the face, may be said to re- 
volve downwards and forwards or backwards, ac- 




Fig. 30. — Sections of orthognathous (light contour) 
and prognathous (dark contour) skulls, one- third of the 
natural size, a 6, Basicranial axis ; h c, ¥ c% plane of the 
occipital foramen ; d d', hinder end of the palatine bone ; 
ee', front end of the upper jaw; TT', insertion of the 
tentorium. 



198 HUMAN FOSSILS. iii 

cording to their position. The arc described by 
any one bone or plane, however, is not by any 
means always in proportion to the arc described by 
another. 

Now comes the important question, can we dis- 
cern, between the lowest and the highest forms of 
the human cranium anything answering, in how- 
ever slight a degree, to this revolution of the side 
and roof bones of the skull upon the basicranial 
axis observed upon so great a scale in the mam- 
malian series? Numerous observations lead me to 
believe that we must answer this question in the 
affirmative. 

The diagrams in Eig. 30 are reduced from 
very carefully made diagrams of sections of four 
skulls, two round and orthognathous, two long and 
prognathous, taken longitudinally and vertically, 
through the middle. The sectional diagrams have 
then been superimposed, in such a manner, that 
the basal axes of the skulls coincide by their an- 
terior ends, and in their direction. The deviations 
of the rest of the contours (which represent the in- 
terior of the skulls only) show the differences of 
the skulls from one another, when these axes are 
regarded as relatively fixed lines. 

The dark contours are those of an Australian 
and of a Negro skull: the light contours are 
those of a Tartar skull, in the Museum of the 
Royal College of Surgeons; and of a well de- 
veloped round skull from a cemetery in Con- 



m YAHIATIONS: HUMAN SKULLS. 199 

stantinople, of uncertain race, in my own pos- 
session. 

It appears, at once, from these views, that the 
prognathous skulls, so far as their jaws are con- 
cerned, do really differ from the orthognathous in 
much the same way as, though to a far less degree 
than, the skulls of the lower mammals differ from 
those of Man. Furthermore, the plane of the oc- 
cipital foramen (& c) forms a somewhat smaller 
angle with the axis in these particular prognathous 
skulls than in the orthognathous; and the like may 
be slightly true of the perforated plate of the eth- 
moid — though this point is not so clear. But it is 
singular to remark that, in another respect, the 
prognathous skulls are less ape-like than the or- 
thognathous, the cerebral cavity projecting decid- 
edly more beyond the anterior end of the axis in 
the prognathous, than in the orthognathous, skulls. 

It will be observed that these diagrams reveal 
an immense range of variation in the capacity and 
relative proportion to the cranial axis, of the differ- 
ent regions of the cavity which contains the brain, 
in the different skulls. N'or is the difference in the 
extent to which the cerebral overlaps the cere- 
bellar cavity less singular. A round skull (Fig. 30, 
Const.) may have a greater posterior cerebral pro- 
jection than a long one (Fig. 30, Negro). 

Until human crania have been largely worked 
out in a manner similar to that here suggested — 
until it shall be an opprobrium to an ethnological. 



200 HUMAN FOSSILS. in 

collection to possess a single skull which is not bi- 
sected longitudinally — until the angles and meas- 
urements here mentioned, together with a number 
of others of which I cannot speak in this place, are 
determined, and tabulated with reference to the 
basicranial axis as unity, for large numbers of skulls 
of the different races of Mankind, I do not think 
we shall have any very safe basis for that ethno- 
logical craniology which aspires to give the ana- 
tomical characters of the crania of the different 
Eaces of Mankind. 

At present, I believe that the general outlines 
of what may be safely said upon that subject may 
be summed up in a very few words. Draw a line 
on a globe, from the Gold Coast in Western Africa 
to the steppes of Tartary. At the southern and 
western end of that line there live the most dolicho- 
cephalic, prognathous, curly-haired, dark-skinned 
of men — the true Negroes. At the northern and 
eastern end of the same line there live the most 
brachycephalic, orthognathous, straight - haired, 
yellow-skinned of men — the Tartars and Cal- 
mueks. The two ends of this imaginary line are 
indeed, so to speak, ethnological antipodes. A 
line drawn at right angles, or nearly so, to this 
polar line through Europe and Southern Asia to 
Hindostan, would give us a sort of equator^ around 
which round-headed, oval-headed, and oblong- 
headed, prognathous and orthognathous, fair and 
dark races — ^but none possessing the excessively 



Ill AUSTRALIAN SKULLS. 201 

marked characters of Calmuck or Negro — group 
themselves. 

It is worthy of notice that the regions of the 
antipodal races are antipodal in climate, the 
greatest contrast the world affords, perhaps, being 
that between the damp, hot, steaming, alluvial 
coast plains of the West Coast of Africa and the 
arid, elevated steppes and plateaux of Central Asia, 
bitterly cold in winter, and as far from the sea as 
any part of the world can be. 

From Central Asia eastward to the Pacific 
Islands and subcontinents on the one hand, and to 
America on the other, brachycephaly and orthog- 
nathism gradually diminish, and are replaced by 
dolichocephaly and prognathism, less, however, on 
the American Continent (throughout the whole 
length of which a rounded type of skull prevails 
largely, but not exclusively) * than in the Pacific 
region, where, at length, on the Australian Con- 
tinent and in the adjacent islands, the oblong 
skull, the projecting jaws, and the dark skin re- 
appear; with so much departure, in other respects, 
from the Negro type, that ethnologists assign to 
these people the special title of " Negritoes.^^ 

The Australian skull is remarkable for its 
narrowness and for the thickness of its walls, 
especially in the region of the supraciliary ridge, 

* See Dr. D. Wilson's valuable paper " On the sup- 
posed prevalence of one Cranial Type throughout the 
American Aborigines." — Canadian Journal, Vol. II. 1857. 



202 HUMAN FOSSILS. m 

which is frequently, though not by any means 
invariably, solid throughout, the frontal sinuses re- 
maining undeveloped. The nasal depression, 
again, is extremely sudden, so that the brows over- 
hang and give the countenance a particularly 
lowering, threatening expression. The occipital 
region of the skull, also, not unfrequently becomes 
less prominent; so that it not only fails to project 
beyond a Hue drawn perpendicular to the hinder 
extremity of the glabello-occipital line, but even, 
in some cases, begins to shelve away from it, for- 
wards, almost immediately. In consequence of 
this circumstance, the parts of the occipital bone 
which lie above and below the tuberosity make a 
much more acute angle with one another than is 
usual, whereby the hinder part of the base of the 
skull appears obliquely truncated. Many Aus- 
tralian skulls have a considerable height, quite 
equal to that of the average of any other race, but 
there are others in which the cranial roof becomes 
remarkably depressed, the skull, at the same time, 
elongating so much that, probably, its capacity is 
not diminished. The majority of skulls possessing 
these characters, which I have seen, are from the 
neighbourhood of Port Adelaide in South Aus- 
tralia, and have been used by the natives as water 
vessels; to which end the face has been knocked 
away, and a string passed through the vacuity and 
the occipital foramen, so that the skull was sus- 
pended by the greater part of its basis. 



Ill 



THE FOSSIL SKULLS. 



203 



Fig. 31 represents the contour of a skull of 
this kind from Western Port, with the jaw 
attached, and of the Neanderthal skull, both 
reduced to one-third of the size of nature. A small 




Fig. 31. — An Australian skull from Western Port, in 
the Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons, with the 
contour of the Neanderthal skull. Both reduced to one- 
third the natural size. 

additional amount of flattening and lengthening, 
with a corresponding increase of the supraciliary 
ridge, would convert the Australian brain case into 
a form identical with that of the aberrant fossil. 



And now, to return to the fossil skulls, and to 
the rank which they occupy among, or beyond. 



204 HUMAN FOSSILS. lu 

these existing varieties of cranial conformation. 
In the first place, I must remark, that, as Professor 
Schmerling well observed {supra, p. 161) in com- 
menting upon the Engis skull, the formation of a 
safe judgment upon the question is greatly hin- 
dered by the absence of the jaws from both the 
crania, so that there is no means of deciding, with 
certainty, whether they were more or less prog- 
nathous than the lower existing races of mankind. 
And yet, as we have seen, it is more in this respect 
than any other, that human skulls vary, towards 
and from, the brutal type — the brain case of an 
average dolichocephalic European differing far less 
from that of a Negro, for example, than his 
jaws do. In the absence of the jaws, then, any 
judgment on the relations of the fossil skulls to 
recent Eaces must be accepted with a certain 
reservation. 

But taking the evidence as it stands, and turn- 
ing first to the Engis skull, I confess I can find 
no character in the remains of that cranium which, 
if it were a recent skull, would give any trust- 
worthy clue as to the Eace to which it might 
appertain. Its contours and measurements agree 
very well with those of some Australian skulls 
which I have examined — and especially has it a 
tendency towards that occipital flattening, to the 
great extent of which, in some Australian skulls, I 
have alluded. But all Australian skulls do not 
present this flattening, and the supraciliary ridge 



in THE FOSSIL SKULLS. 205 

of the Engis skull is quite unlike that of the typical 
Australians. 

On the other hand, its measurements agree 
equally well with those of some European skulls. 
And assuredly, there is no mark of degradation 
about any part of its structure. It is, in fact, a 
fair average human skull, which might have be- 
longed to a philosopher, or might have contained 
the thoughtless brains of a savage. 

The case of the Neanderthal skull is very differ- 
ent. Under whatever aspect we view this cranium, 
whether we regard its vertical depression, the 
enormous thickness of its supraciliary ridges, its 
sloping occiput, or its long and straight squamosal 
suture, we meet with ape-like characters, stamp- 
ing it as the most pithecoid of human crania yet 
discovered. But Professor Schaaffhausen states 
(supra, p. 178), that the cranium, in its present 
condition, holds 1033.24 cubic centimetres of 
water, or about 63 cubic inches, and as the entire 
skull could hardly have held less than an additional 
12 cubic inches, its capacity may be estimated at 
about 75 cubic inches, which is the average capac- 
ity given by Morton for Polynesian and Hottentot 
skulls. 

So large a mass of brain as this, would alone 
suggest that the pithecoid tendencies, indicated by 
this skull, did not extend deep into the organiza- 
tion; and this conclusion is borne out by the di- 
mensions of the other bones of the skeleton given 



206 HUMAN FOSSILS. m 

by Professor Schaaffhausen, which show that the 
absolute height and relative proportions of the 
limbs, were qnite those of an European of middle 
stature. The bones are indeed stouter, but this 
and the great development of the muscular ridges 
noted by Dr. Schaaffhausen, are characters to be 
expected in savages. The Patagonians, exposed 
without shelter or protection to a climate possibly 
not very dissimilar from that of Europe at the time 
during which the Neanderthal man lived, are re- 
markable for the stoutness of their limb bones. 

In no sense, then, can the Neanderthal bones 
be regarded as the remains of a human being inter- 
mediate between Men and Apes. At most, they 
demonstrate the existence of a Man whose skull 
may be said to revert somewhat towards the pithe- 
coid type — just as a Carrier, or a Pouter, or a 
Tumbler, may sometimes put on the plumage of 
its primitive stock, the Columba livia. And in- 
deed, though truly the most pithecoid of known 
human skulls, the Neanderthal cranium is by no 
means so isolated as it appears to be at first, but 
forms, in reality, the extreme term of a series lead- 
ing gradually from it to the highest and best de- 
veloped of human crania. On the one hand, it is 
closely approached by the flattened Australian 
skulls, of which I have spoken, from which other 
Australian forms lead us gradually up to skulls 
having very much the type of the Engis cranium. 
And, on the other hand, it is even more closely 




Fig. 32. — Ancient Danish skull from a tumulus at 
Borreby; one-third of the natural size. From a camera 
iueida drawing by Mr. Busk. 



208 HUMAN FOSSILS. in 

affined to the skulls of certain ancient people who 
inhabited Denmark during the " stone period/^ and 
were probably either contemporaneous with, or 
later than, the makers of the " refuse heaps," or 
" Kjokkenmoddings " of that country. 

The correspondence between the longitudinal 
contour of the N'eanderthal skull and that of some 
of those skulls from the tumuli at Borreby, very 
accurate drawings of which have been made by 
Mr. Busk, is very close. The occiput is quite as 
retreating, the supraciliary ridges are nearly as 
prominent, and the skull is as low. Furthermore, 
the Borreby skull resembles the ^Neanderthal form 
more closely than any of the Australian skulls do, 
by the much more rapid retrocession of the fore- 
head. On the other hand, the Borreby skulls are all 
somewhat broader, in proportion to their length, 
than the Neanderthal skull, while some attain 
that proportion of breadth to length (80 : 100) 
which constitutes brachycephaly.* 

[* For a further discussion of the characters of the 
Neanderthal skull, see " Natural History Review," 1864. 
I there say (p. 443) : " That the Neanderthal skull ex- 
hibits the lowest type of human cranium at present 
known, so far as it presents certain pithecoid characters 
in a more exaggerated form than any other: but that, in- 
asmuch as a complete series of gradations can be found, 
among recent human skulls, between it and the best de- 
veloped forms, there is no ground for separating its pos- 
sessor specifically, still less generically, from Homo 
sapiens. At present, we have no sufficient warranty for 
declaring it to be either the type of a distinct race, or a 
member of any existing one; nor do the anatomical char- 
acters of the skull justify any conclusion as to the age to 



Ill ANCIENT DANISH SKULLS. 209 

In conclusion, I may say, that the fossil remains 
of Man hitherto discovered do not seem to me to 
take us appreciably nearer to that lower pithecoid 
form, by the modification of which he has, probably, 
become what he is. And considering what is now 
known of the most ancient Races of men; seeing 
that they fashioned flint axes and flint knives and 
bone-skewers, of much the same pattern as those 
fabricated by the lowest savages at the present day, 
and that we have every reason to believe the habits 
and modes of living of such people to have re- 
mained the same from the time of the Mammoth 
and the tichorhine Rhinoceros till now, I do not 
know that this result is other than might be ex- 
pected. 

Where, then, must we look for primaeval Man? 
Was the oldest Homo sapiens pliocene or miocene, 
or yet more ancient? In still older strata do the 
fossilized bones of an ape more anthropoid, or a 
Man more pithecoid, than any yet known await the 
researches of some unborn paleontologist? 

Time will show. But, in the meanwhile, if any 
form of the doctrine of progressive development is 
correct, we must extend by long epochs the most 
liberal estimate that has yet been made of the an- 
tiquity of Man. 

which it belongs." See also the essay on the Aryan -* les- 
tion in this volume. 1894.] 
178 



lY. 



ON THE METHODS AND EESULTS OP 
ETHNOLOGY. 

[1865.] 

Ethnology is the science wliieli determines 
the distinctive characters of the persistent modifica- 
tions of mankind; which ascertains the distribution 
of those modifications in present and past times, 
and seeks to discover the causes, or conditions of 
existence, both of the modifications and of their 
distribution. I say " persistent " modifications, 
because, unless incidentally, ethnology has nothing 
to do with chance and transitory peculiarities of 
human structure. And I speak of "persistent 
modifications ^^ or " stocks ^^ rather than of " varie- 
ties,^^ or "races," or "species," because each of these 
last well-known terms implies, on the part of its 
employer, a preconceived opinion touching one of 
those problems, the solution of which is the ulti- 
mate object of the science; and in regard to which, 
therefore, ethnologists are especially bound to 
210 



METHODS AND EESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY. 211 

keep their minds open and their judgments freely 
balanced. 

Ethnology, as thns defined, is a branch of An- 
thropology, the great science which unravels the 
complexities of human structure; traces out the re- 
lations of man to other animals; studies all that is 
especially human in the mode in which man's com- 
plex functions are performed; and searches after 
the conditions which have determined his presence 
in the world. And anthropology is a section of 
Zoology, which again is the animal half of Bi- 
ology — the science of life and living things. 

Such is the position of ethnology, such are the 
objects of the ethnologist. The paths or methods, 
by following which he may hope to reach his 
goal, are diverse. He may work at man from the 
point of view of the pure zoologist, and investigate 
the anatomical and physiological peculiarities of 
Negroes, Australians, or Mongolians, just as he 
would inquire into those of pointers, terriers, and 
turnspits, — " persistent modifications " of man's 
almost universal companion. Or he may seek aid 
from researches into the most human manifesta- 
tion of humanity — Language; and assuming that 
what is true of speech is true of the speaker — a 
hypothesis as questionable in science as it is in ordi- 
nary life — he may apply to mankind themselves 
the conclusions drawn from a searching analysis of 
their words and grammatical forms. 

Or, the ethnologist may turn to the study qf 



212 METHODS AND RESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY. 

the practical life of men; and relying upon the 
inherent conservatism and small inventiveness of 
untutored mankind, he may hope to discover in 
manners and customs, or in weapons, dwellings, 
and other handiwork, a clue to the origin of the 
resemblances and differences of nations. Or, he 
may resort to that kind of evidence which is 
yielded by History proper, and consists of the be- 
liefs of men concerning past events, embodied in 
traditional, or in written testimony. Or, when that 
thread breaks. Archaeology, which is the interpre- 
tation of the unrecorded remains of man's works, 
belonging to the epoch since the world has reached 
its present condition, may still guide him. And, 
when even the dim light of archaeology fades, there 
yet remains Palaeontology, which, in these latter 
years has brought to daylight once more the exuvia 
of ancient populations, whose world was not our 
world, who have been buried in river beds imme- 
morially dry, or carried by the rush of waters into 
caves, inaccessible to inundation since the dawn of 
tradition. 

Along each, or all, of these paths the ethnolo- 
gist may press towards his goal; but they are not 
equally straight, or sure, or easy to tread. The 
way of palaeontology has but just been laid open 
to us. Archffiological and historical investigations 
are of great value for all those peoples whose an- 
cient state has differed widely from their present 
condition, and who have the good or evil fortune to 



METHODS AND RESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY. 213 

possess a history. But on taking a broad survey of 
the worlds it is astonishing how few nations present 
either condition. Eespecting five-sixths of the per- 
sistent modifications of mankind, history and 
archaeology are absolutely silent. For half the rest, 
they might as well be silent for anything that is to 
be made of their testimony. And, finally, when 
the question arises as to what was the condition of 
mankind more than a paltry two or three thou- 
sand years ago, history and archaeology are, for the 
most part, mere dumb dogs. What light does 
either of these branches of knowledge throw on the 
past of the man of the New World, if we except the 
Central Americans and the Peruvians; on that of 
the Africans, save those of the Valley of the Nile 
and a fringe of the Mediterranean; on that of all 
the Polynesian, Australian, and central Asiatic 
peoples, the former of whom probably, and the last 
certainly, were, at the dawn of history, substan- 
tially what they are now? While thankfully ac- 
cepting what history has to give him, therefore, 
the ethnologist must not look for too much from 
her. 

Is more to be expected from inquiries into the 
customs and handicrafts of man? It is to be feared 
not. In reasoning from identity of custom to iden- 
tity of stock the difficulty always obtrudes itself, 
that the minds of men being everywhere similar, 
differing in quality and quantity but not in kind 
of faculty, like circumstances must tend to produce 



214 METHODS AND RESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY^ 

like contrivances; at any rate, so long as the need' 
to be met and conquered is of a very simple kind. 
That two nations use calabashes or shells for drink- 
ing-vessels, or that they employ spears, or clubs, or 
(Swords and axes of stone and metal as weapons and 
implements, cannot be regarded as evidence that 
these two nations had a common origin, or even 
that intercommunication ever took place between 
them; seeing that the convenience of using cala- 
bashes or shells for such purposes, and the advan- 
tage of poking an enemy with a sharp stick, or 
hitting him with a heavy one, must be early forced 
by nature upon the mind of even the stupidest sav- 
age. And when he had found out the use of a 
stick, he would need no prompting to discover the 
value of a chipped or whetted stone, or of an an- 
gular piece of native metal, for the same object. 
On the other hand, it may be doubted, whether the 
chances are not greatly against independent peo- 
ples arriving at the manufacture of a boomerang, 
or of a bow; which last, if one comes to think of it, 
is a rather complicated apparatus; and the tracing 
of the distribution of inventions as complex as 
these, and of such strange customs as betel-chew- 
ing and tobacco-smoking, may afford valuable eth- 
nological hints. 

Since the time of Leibnitz, and guided by such 
men as Humboldt, Abel Eemusat, and Klaproth, 
Philology has taken far higher ground. Thus 
Prichard affirms that " the history of nations," 



METHODS AND RESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY. 215 

termed Ethnology, must be mainly founded on the 
relations of their languages." 

An eminent living philologer, August 
Schleicher, in a recent essay, puts forward the 
claims of his science still more forcibly: — 

" If, however, language is the human kot i^oxhy) the 
suggestion arises whether it should not form the basis of 
any scientific systematic arrangement of mankind; 
whether the foundation of the natural classification of the 
genus Homo has not been discovered in it. 

" How little constant are cranial peculiarities and other 
so-called race characters! Language, on the other hand, 
is always a perfectly constant diagnostic. A German 
may occasionally compete in hair and prognathism with 
a negro, but a negro language will never be his mother 
tongue. Of hoAV little importance for mankind the so- 
called race characters are, is shown by the fact that 
speakers of languages belonging to one and the same 
linguistic family may exhibit the peculiarities of various 
races. Thus the settled Osmanli Turk exhibits Caucasian 
characters, whilst other so-called Tartaric Turks exem- 
plify the Mongol type. On the other hand, the Magyar 
and the Basque do not depart in any essential physical 
peculiarity from the Indo-Germans, whilst the Magyar, 
Basque, and Indo- Germanic tongues are widely different. 
Apart from their inconstancy, again, the so-called race 
characters can hardly yield a scientifically natural system. 
Languages, on the other hand, readily fall into a natural 
arrangement, like that of which other vital products are 
susceptible, especially when viewed from their morpho- 
logical side. . . . The externally visible structure of the 
cerebral and facial skeletons, and of the body generally, 
is less important than that no less material but infinitely 
more delicate corporeal structure, the function of which 



216 METHODS AND RESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY. 

is speech. I conceive, therefore, that the natural classi- 
fication of languages, is also the natural classification of 
mankind. With language, moreover, all the higher mani- 
festations of man's vital activity are closely interwoven, 
so that these receive due recognition in and by that of 
speech." * 

Without the least desire to depreciate the value 
of philology as an adjuvant to ethnology, I must 
venture to doubt, with Eudolphi, Desmoulins, 
Crawfurd, and others, its title to the leading 
position claimed for it by the writers whom I have 
just quoted. On the contrary, it seems to me ob- 
vious that, though, in the absence of any evidence 
to the contrary, unity of languages may afford 
a certain presumption in favour of the unity of 
stock of the peoples speaking those languages, 
it cannot be held to prove that unity of stock, un- 
less philologers are prepared to demonstrate, that 
no nation can lose its language and acquire that of 
a distinct nation, without a change of blood corre- 
sponding with the change of language. Desmou- 
lins long ago put this argument exceedingly well: — 

" Let us imagine the recurrence of one of those slow, 
or sudden, political revolutions, or say of those secular 
changes which among different people and at different 
epochs have annihilated historical monuments and even 
extinguished tradition. In that case, the evidence, now 
so clear, that the negroes of Hayti were slaves imported 



* August Schleicher. Veher die Bedeiitung der 
Hpraclie fur die NaturgescMcJite des Menschen, pp. IG 
—18. Weimar, 1858. 



METHODS AND RESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY. 217 

by a French colony, who, by the very effect of the sub- 
ordination involved in slavery lost their own diverse lan- 
guages and adopted that of their masters, would vanish. 
And metaphysical philosophers, observing the identity of 
Haytian French with that spoken on the shores of the 
Seine and the Loire, would argue that the men of St. 
Domingo with woolly heads, black and oily skins, small 
calves, and slightly bent knees, are of the same race, de- 
scended from the same parental stock, as the Frenchmen 
with silky brown, chestnut, or fair hair, and white skins. 
For they would say, their languages are more similar than 
French is to German or Spanish." * 

It must not be imagined that the case put by 
Desmouhns is a merely hypothetical one. Events 
precisely similar to the transport of a body of 
Africans to the West India Islands, indeed, cannot 
have happened among uncivilised races, but 
similar results have followed the importation of 
bodies of conquerors among an enslaved people over 
and over again. There is hardly a country in Eu- 
rope in which two or more nations speaking widely 
dijfferent tongues have not become intermixed; and 
there is hardly a language of Europe of which we 
have any right to think that its structure affords a 
just indication of the amount of that intermixture. 

As Dr. Latham has well said: — 

" It is certain that the language of England is of An- 
glo-Saxon origin, and that the remains of the original 
Keltic are unimportant. It is by no means so certain that 
the blood of Englishmen is equally Germanic. A vast 

* Desmoulins, Eistoire Naturelle des Races Hiimaines, 
p. 345, 1826. 



218 METHODS AND RESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY. 

amount of Kelticism, not found in our tongue, very 
probably exists in our pedigrees. The ethnology of 
Erance is still more complicated. Many writers make the 
Parisian a Roman on the strength of his language ; whilst 
others make him a Kelt on the strength of certain moral 
characteristics, combined with the previous Keltieism of 
the original Gauls. Spanish and Portuguese, as languages, 
are derivations from the Latin; Spain and Portugal, as 
countries, E^re Iberic, Latin, Gothic, and Arab, in dif- 
ferent proportions. Italian is modern Latin all the world 
over ; yet surely there must be much Keltic blood in 
Lombardy, and much Etruscan intermixture in Tuscany. 
" In the ninth century every man between the Elbe 
and the Memen spoke some Slavonic dialect; they now 
nearly all speak German. Surely the blood is less ex- 
clusively Gothic than the speech." * 

In other words, what philologer, if he had noth- 
ing but the vocabulary and grammar of the French 
and English languages to guide him, would dream 
of the real causes of the unlikeness of a Norman to 
a Provengal, of an Orcadian to a Cornishman? 
How readily might he be led to suppose that the 
different climatal conditions to which these speak- 
ers of one tongue have so long been exposed, have 
caused their physical differences; and how little 
would he suspect that these are due (as we happen 
to know they are) to wide differences of blood. 

Few take duly into account the evidence which 

exists as to the ease with which unlettered savages 

gain or lose a language. Captain Erskine, in his 

interesting " Journal of a Cruise among the Islands 

* Latham, Man and his Migrations, p. 171. 



METHODS AND RESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY. 219 

©f the Western Pacific," especially remarks upon 
the " avidity with which the inhabitants of the 
polyglot islands of Melanesia, from New Caledonia 
to the Solomon Islands, adopt the improvements 
of a more perfect language than their own, which 
different causes and accidental communication still 
continue to bring to them; " and he adds that 
*^ among the Melanesian islands scarcely one was 
found by us which did not possess, in some cases 
still imperfectly, the decimal system of numeration 
in addition to their own, in which they reckon only 
to five." 

Yet how much philological reasoning in favour 
of the affinity or diversity of two distinct peoples 
has been based on the mere comparison of 
numerals! 

But the most instructive example of the fallacy 
which may attach to merely philological reason- 
ings, is that afforded by the Feejeans, who are, 
physically, so intimately connected with the ad- 
jacent Negritos of New Caledonia, &c., that no 
one can doubt to what stock they belong, and 
who yet, in the form and substance of their 
language, are Polynesian. The case is as remark- 
able as if the, Canary Islands should have been 
found to be inhabited by negroes speaking Arabic, 
or some other clearly Semitic dialect, as their 
mother tongue. As it happens, the physical 
peculiarities of the Feejeans are so striking, and 
the conditions under which they live are so similar 



220 METHODS AND EESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY. 

to those of the Polynesians, that no one has ven- 
tured to suggest that they are merely modified 
Polynesians — a suggestion which could otherwise 
certainly have been made. But if languages may 
be thus transferred from one stock to another, 
without any corresponding intermixture of blood, 
what ethnological value has philology? — what se- 
curity does unity of language afford us that the 
speakers of that language may not have sprung 
from two, or three, or a dozen, distinct sources? 

Thus we come, at last, to the purely zoological 
method, from which it is not unnatural to expect 
more than from any other, seeing that, after all, 
the problems of ethnology are simply those which 
are presented to the zoologist by every widely dis- 
tributed animal he studies. The father of modern 
zoology seems to have had no doubt upon this point. 
At the twenty-eighth page of the standard twelfth 
edition of the " Systema Naturag," in fact, we 
find:— 

I. Primates. 

Denies primores incisores : superiores IV. paralleli, 
mammcB pedorales II. 

1. Homo. Nosce te ipsum. 

Sapiens. 1. H. diurnus : varians cultura, loco. 

Ferus. Tetrapus, mutus, hirsutus. 

Americanua a. Rufus, cholericus, rectus — Pilis nigris, rec- 
tis, crassis — Naribus patulis — Facie ephe- 
litica : Mento subiraberbi. 

Pertinax, contentus, liber. Pingit se lineis 
daedaleis rubris. 

Regitur Consuetudine. 



METHODS AND RESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY. 221 



EuropcBus /3. Albus sanguineus torosus. Pilis flavescen- 
tibus, prolixis. 
Oculis coeruleis. 

Levis, argutus, inventor. Tegitur Vesti- 
mentis arctis. Regitur Ritibus. 
Asiaticus y. Luridus, melancholicus, rigidus. Pilis ni- 
gricantibus. Oculis fuscis. Severus, fas- 
tuosus, avarus. Tegitur Indumentis laxis. 
Regitur Opinionibus. 
Afer 5. Niger, phlegmaticus, laxus. Pilis atris, con- 

tortuplicatis. Cute holosericea. Naso 
simo. Lahiis tumidis. Feminis sinus 
pudoris. 
MammcB lactantes prolixae. 
Yafer, segnis, negligens. Ungit se pingai. 
Regitur Arbitrio. 
Monstrosus c. Solo (a) et arte (b c) variat. : 

a. Alpini parvi, agiles, timidi. 
Patagonici magni, segnes. 

b. Monorchides ut minus fertiles: Hotten- 

totti. 
JuncecB puellae, abdomine attenuate : Eu- 
ropaeaD. 

c. Macrocephali capiti conico : Chinenses. 
Plagiocephali capite antice compressor 

Canadenses. 

Turn a few pages further on in the same vol- 
ume, and there appears, with a fine impartiality 
in the distribution of capitals and subdivisional 
headings: — 

III. Feuje. 

Denies primores superiores sex, acutiusculi. Canini 

solitarii. 

13. Canis. Denies primores superiores VI. : laterales 

longiores distantes : intermedii lobati. In- 
feriores VI. : laterales lobati. 



222 METHODS AND RESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY. 

Laniarii solitarii, incurvati. 
Molares VI. s. YII. (pluresve quam in reli- 
quis.) 

familiaris 1. C. cauda (sinistrorsum) recurvata 

domesticus a. auriculis erectis, cauda subtus lanata. 
sagax /3. auriculis pendulis, digito spurio ad tibias 

posticas. 
grajus 7. magnitudine lupi, trunco curYato, rostro at- 

tenuate, &c. &c. 

Linnaeus^ definition of what he considers to be 
mere varieties of the species Man are, it will be 
observed, as completely free from any allusion to 
linguistic peculiarities as those brief and pregnant 
sentences in which he sketches the characters of 
the varieties of the species Dog. " Pilis nigris, 
naribus patulis '^ may be set against " auriculis 
erectis, cauda subtus lanata; " while the remarks 
on the morals and manners of the human subject 
seem as if they were thrown in merely by way of 
makeweight. 

Buffon, Blumenbach (the founder of ethnology 
as a special science), Eudolphi, Bory de St. 
Vincent, Desmoulins, Cuvier, Retzius, indeed I 
may say all the naturalists proper, have dealt with 
man from a no less completely zoological point of 
view; while, as might have been expected, those 
who have been least naturalists^ and most lin- 
guists, have most neglected the zoological method, 
the neglect culminating in those who have been 
altogether devoid of acquaintance with anatomy. 

Prichard's proposition, that language is more 



METHODS AND RESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY. 223 

persistent fhan physical characters, is one which 
has never been proved, and indeed admits of no 
proof, seeing that the records of language do not 
extend so far as those of physical characters. 
But, until the superior tenacity of linguistic over 
physical peculiarities is shown, and until the 
abundant evidence which exists, that the language 
of a people may change without corresponding 
physical change in that people, is shown to be 
valueless, it is plain that the zoological court of 
appeal is the highest for the ethnologist, and that 
no evidence can be set against that derived from 
physical characters. 

What, then, will a new survey of mankind from 
. the Linnean point of view teach us ? 

The great antipodal block of land we call Aus- 
tralia has, speaking roughly, the form of a vast 
quadrangle, 2,000 miles on the side, and extends 
from the hottest tropical, to the middle of the tem- 
perate, zone. Setting aside the foreign colonists 
introduced within the last century, it is inhabited 
by people no less remarkable for the uniformity, 
than for the singularity, of their physical charac- 
ters and social state. For the most part of fair 
stature, erect and well built, except for an un- 
usual slenderness of the lower limbs, the Aus- 
TEALiANS have dark, usually chocolate-coloured 
skins; fine dark wavy hair; dark eyes, overhung by 
beetle brows; coarse, projecting jaws; broad and 



224: METHODS AND RESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY. 

dilated, but not especially flattened, noses, and 
lips which, though prominent, are eminently 
flexible. 

The skulls of these people are always long and 
narrow, with a smaller development of the frontal 
sinuses than usually corresponds with such largely 
developed brow ridges. An Australian skull of a 
round form, or one the transverse diameter of 
which exceeds eight-tenths of its length, has 
never been seen. These people, in a word, are 
eminently " dolichocephalic,^^ or long-headed; but, 
with this one limitation, their crania present con- 
siderable variations, some being comparatively 
high and arched, while others are more remarkably 
depressed than almost any other human skulls. 
The female pelvis differs comparatively little from 
the European; but in the pelves of male Austra- 
lians which I have examined, the antero-posterior 
and transverse diameters approach equality more 
nearly than is the case in Europeans. 

No Australian tribe has ever been known to 
cultivate the ground,* to use metals, pottery, or 
any kind of textile fabric. They rarely construct 
huts. Their means of navigation are limited to 
rafts or canoes, made of sheets of bark. Clothing, 
except skin cloaks for protection from cold, is a 

[* At Cape York we found that the natives had learned 
from their Papuan neighbours to grow a little coarse 
tobacco; and, elsewhere, yams are said to be grown, but 
hardly cultivated. Plaiting, basket-making, and netting 
are practised. — 1894.] 



METHODS AND RESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY. 225 

superfluity with which, they dispense; and though 
they have some singular weapons, almost peculiar 
to themselves, they are wholly unacquainted with 
bows and arrows. 

It is but a step, as it were, across Bass's Straits 
to Tasmania. Neither climate nor the character- 
istic forms of vegetable or animal life change 
largely on the south *side of the Straits, but the 
early voyagers found Man singularly different from 
him on the north side. The skin of the Tasmanian 
was dark, though he lived between parallels of lati- 
tude corresponding with those of middle Europe in 
our own hemisphere; his jaws projected, his head 
was long and narrow; his civilization was about on 
a footing with that of the Australian, if not lower, 
for I cannot discover that the Tasmanian under- 
stood the use of the throwing-stick. But he dif- 
fered from the Australian in his woolly, negro-like 
hair; whence the name of Negrito, which has 
been applied to him and his congeners. 

Such Negritos — differing more or less from the 
Tasmanian but agreeing with him in dark skin and 
woolly hair — occupy New Caledonia, the New Heb- 
rides, the Louisiade Archipelago; and stretching 
to the Papuan Islands, and for a doubtful extent 
beyond them to the north and west, form a sort 
of belt, or zone, of Negrito population, interposed 
between the Australians on the west and the in- 
habitants of the great majority of the Pacific islands 

on the east. 
179 



226 METHODS AND KESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY. 

The cranial characters of the Negritos vary con- 
siderably more than those of their skin and hair, 
the most notable circumstance being the strong 
Australian aspect which distinguishes many Ne- 
grito skulls, while others tend rather towards forms 
common in the Polynesian islands. 

In civilization, New Caledonia exhibits an ad- 
vance upon Tasmania, and, farther north, there is 
a still greater improvement. But the bows and 
arrows, the perched houses, the outrigger canoes, 
the habits of betel-chewing and of kawa-drinking, 
which abound more or less among the northern 
Negritos, are probably to be regarded not as the 
products of an indigenous civilization, but merely 
as indications of the extent to which foreign 
influences have modified the primitive social state 
of these people. 

From Tasmania or New Caledonia, to New 
Zealand or Tongataboo, is again but a brief 
voyage: but it brings about a still more notable 
change in the aspect of the indigenous population 
than that effected by the passage of Basses Straits. 
Instead of being chocolate-coloured people, the 
Maories and Tongans are light brown; instead of 
woolly, they have straight, or wavy, black hair. 
And if from New Zealand, we travel some 5,000 
miles east to Easter Island; and from Easter Island, 
for as great a distance north-west, to the Sandwich 
Islands; and thence 7,000 miles, westward and 
southward, to Sumatra; and even across the 



METHODS AND RESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY. 227 

Indian Ocean, into the interior of Madagascar, we 
shall everywhere meet with people whose hair is 
straight or wavy, and whose skins exhibit various 
shades of brown. These are the Polynesians, 
Micronesians, Indonesians, whom Latham has 
grouped together under the common title of 
Amphinesians. 

The cranial characters of these people, as of the 
Negritos, are less constant than those of their skin 
and hair. The Maori has a long skull; the Sand- 
wich Islander a broad skull. Some, like these, 
have strong brow ridges; others like the Dayaks 
and many Polynesians, have hardly any nasal in- 
dentation. It is only in the westernmost parts of 
their area that the Amphinesian nations know any- 
thing about bows and arrows as weapons, or are 
acquainted with the use of metals or with pottery. 
Everywhere they cultivate the ground, construct 
houses, and skilfully build and manage outrigger, 
or double, canoes; while, almost everywhere, they 
use some kind of fabric for clothing. 

Between Easter Island, or the Sandwich Islands^ 
and any part of the American coast is a much wider 
interval than that between Tasmania and New 
Zealand, but the ethnological interval between the 
American and the Polynesian is less than that be- 
tween either of the previously named stocks. 

The typical Amebic an has straight black hair 
and dark eyes, his skin exhibiting various shades 
of reddish or yellowish brown, sometimes inclining 



228 METHODS AND RESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY. 

to olive. The face is broad and scantily bearded; 
the skull wide and high. Such people extend 
from Patagonia to Mexico, and much farther north 
along the west coast. In the main a race of 
hunters, they had nevertheless, at the time of the 
discovery of the Americas, attained a remarkable 
degree of civilization in some localities. They had 
domesticated ruminants, and not only practised 
agriculture, but had learned the value of irrigation. 
They manufactured textile fabrics, were masters 
of the potter's art, and knew how to erect massive 
buildings of stone. They understood the working 
of the precious, though not of the useful, metals; * 
and had even attained to a rude kind of hiero- 
glyphic, or picture, writing. The Americans not 
only employ the bow and arrow, but, like some 
Amphinesians, the blow-pipe, as offensive weapons: 
but I am not aware that the outrigger canoe has 
ever been observed among them. 

I have reason to suspect that some of the 
Puegian tribes differ cranially from the typical 
Americans; f and the Northern and Eastern 
American tribes have longer skulls than their 
Southern compatriots. But the Esquimaux, who 
roam on the desolate and ice-bound coast of Arctic 
America, certainly present us with a new stock. 
The Esquimaux (among whom the G-reenlanders 

[* With the exception of copper and bronze, — 1894.] 
[t A suspicion subsequently verified. See a memoir on 

American Skulls, Journal of Anatomy and Physiology. 

Vol. 16.— 1894.] 



METHODS AND RESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY. 229 

are included), in fact, though they share the 
straight hlack hair of the proper Americans, are 
generally a duller complexioned, shorter, and a 
more squat people, and they have still more promi- 
nent cheek-hones. But the circumstance which 
most completely separates them from the typical 
Americans, is the form of their skulls, which in- 
stead of being broad, high, and truncated behind, 
are eminently long, usually low, and prolonged 
backwards. These Hyperborean people clothe 
themselves in skins, know nothing of pottery, and 
hardly anything of metals. Dependent for exist- 
ence upon the produce of the chase, the seal and 
the whale are to them what the cocoa-nut tree and 
the plantain are to the savages of more genial 
climates. Not only are those animals meat and 
raiment, but they are canoes, sledges, weapons, 
tools, windows, and fire; while- they support the 
dog, who is the indispensable ally and beast of bur- 
den of the Esquimaux. 

It is admitted that the Tchuktchi, on the east- 
ern side of Behring's Straits, are, in all essential 
respects, Esquimaux; and I do not know that there 
is any satisfactory evidence to show that the Tun- 
guses and Samoiedes do not essentially share the 
same physical characters. Southward, there are 
indications of Esquimaux characters among the 
Japanese, and it is possible that their influence may 
be traced yet further. 

However this may be. Eastern Asia, from Mant- 



230 METHODS AND EESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY. 

chouria to Siam, Thibet, and Northern Hindostan, 
is continuously inhabited by men, usually of short 
stature, with skins varying in colour from yellow 
to olive; with broad cheek-bones and faces that, 
owing to the insignificance of the nose, are exceed- 
ingly flat; and with small, obliquely-set * black 
eyes and straight black hair, which sometimes at- 
tains a very great length upon the scalp, but is 
always scanty upon the face and body. The skull, 
never much elongated, is, generally, remarkably 
broad and rounded, with hardly any nasal depres- 
sion, and but slight, if any, projection of the jaws. 
Many of these people, from whom the old name of 
Mongolians may be retained, are nomades; others, 
as the Chinese, have attained a remarkable and ap- 
parently indigenous civilization, only surpassed by 
that of Europe. 

At the north-western extremity of Europe the 
Lapps repeat the characters of the Eastern 
Asiatics. Between these extreme points, the 
Mongolian stock is not continuous, but is repre- 
sented by a chain of more or less isolated tribes, 
who pass under the name of Calmucks and Tar- 
tars, and form Mongolian islands, as it were, in the 
midst of an ocean of other people. 

The waves of this ocean are the nations for 
whom, in order to avoid the endless confusion pro- 
duced by our present half-physical, half-philo- 

[* The obliquity, it must be recollected, is not in the 
position of the eyeball but arises from the arrangement 
of the skin in the neighbourhood of the eyelids. — 1894.] 



METHODS AND RESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY. 231 

logical classification, I shall use a new name — 
Xanthochroi — indicating that they are " yellow " 
haired and " pale " in complexion. The Chinese 
historians of the Han dynasty, writing in the third 
century before our era, describe, with much 
minuteness, certain numerous and powerful bar- 
barians with " yellow hair, green eyes, and promi- 
nent noses," who, the black-haired, skew-eyed, and 
flat-nosed annalists remark in passing, are "just 
like the apes from whom they are descended." 
These people held, in force, the upper waters of 
the Yenisei, and thence under various names 
stretched southward to Thibet and Kashgar. 
Fair-haired and blue-eyed northern enemies were 
no less known to the ancient Hindoos, to the Per- 
sians, and to the Egyptians, on the south and west 
of the great central Asiatic area; while the testi- 
mony of all European antiquity is to the effect that, 
before and since the period in question, there lay 
beyond the Danube, the Ehine, and the Seine, a 
vast and dangerous yellow or red-haired, fair- 
skinned, blue-eyed population. Whether the dis- 
turbers of the marches of the Eoman Empire were 
called Gauls or Germans, Goths, Alans, or Scyth- 
ians, one thing seems certain, that until the in- 
vasion of the Huns, they were largely tall, fair, 
blue-eyed men. 

If any one should think fit to assume that, in 
the year 100 b. c, there was one continuous Xan- 
thochroic population from the Ehine to the Yeni- 



232 METHODS AOT) RESULTS OP ETHNOLOGY. 

sei, and from the Ural mountains to the Hindoo 
Koosh^ I know not that any evidence exists by 
which that position could be npset, while the ex- 
isting state of things is rather in its favour than 
otherwise. For the Scandinavians, the Germans, 
the Slavonian and the Finnish tribes, to a great 
extent; some of the inhabitants of Greece, many 
Turks, some Kirghis, and some Mantchons, the 
Ossetes in the Caucasus, the Siahposh, the Eohillas, 
are at the present day fair, yellow or red haired, 
and blue-eyed; and the interpolation of tribes of 
Mongolian hair and complexion, as far west as the 
Caspian Steppes and the Crimea, might justly be 
accounted for by those subsequent westward irrup- 
tions of the Mongolian stock, of which history fur- 
nishes abundant testimony. The furthermost 
limit of the Xanthochroi north-westward is Ice- 
land and the British Isles; south-westward, they 
are traceable at intervals through Syria and the 
Berber country, ending in the Canary Islands. 
The cranial characters of the Xanthochroi are not, 
at present, strictly definable. The Scandinavians 
are certainly long-headed; but many Germans, the 
Swiss so far as they are Germanized, the Slavonians, 
the Fins, and the Turks, are short-headed, ^^^lat 
were the cranial characters of the ancient " U- 
suns " and " Ting-lings '' of the valley of the Yeni- 
sei is unknown. 

West and south of the area occupied by the 
chief mass of the Xanthochroi, and north of the 



METHODS AND EESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY. 233 

Sahara, is a broad belt of land, shaped like a 
>-. Between the forks of the Y lies the 
Mediterranean; the stem of it is Arabia. The 
stem is bathed by the Indian Ocean, the west- 
ern ends of the forks by the Atlantic. The ma- 
jority of the people inhabiting the area thus 
ronghly defined have, like the Xanthochroi, promi- 
nent noses, pale skins and wavy hair, with abun- 
dant beards; but, unlike them, the hair is black 
or dark and the eyes usually so. They may 
thence be called the Melakochkoi. Such people 
are found in the British Islands, in Western and 
Southern Gaul, in Spain, in Italy south of the Po, 
in parts of Greece, in Syria and Arabia, stretching 
as far northward and eastward as the Caucasus and 
Persia. They are the chief inhabitants of Africa 
north of the Sahara, and, like the Xanthochroi, 
they end in the Canary Islands. They are known 
as Kelts, Iberians, Etruscans, Eomans, Pelasgians, 
Berbers, Semites. The majority of them are long- 
headed, and of smaller stature than the Xantho- 
chroi.* It is needless to remark upon the civiliza- 
tion of these two great stocks. With them has 
originated everything that is highest in science, in 
art, in law, in politics, and in mechanical inven- 
tions. In their hands, at the present moment, lies 
the order of the social world, and to them its pro- 
gress is committed. 

[* See the Essay on the Aryan Question, in this vol- 
ume, for some qualifications of these statements neces- 
sitated by further knowledge. — 1894.] 



234 METHODS AKD RESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY. 

South of the Atlas, and of the Great Desert, 
Middle Africa exhibits a new type of humanity in 
the Negeo, with his dark skin, woolly hair, pro- 
jecting jaws, and thick lips. As a rule, the skull 
of the I^egro is remarkably long; it rarely ap- 
proaches the broad type, and never exhibits the 
roundness of the Mongolian. A cultivator of the 
ground, and dwelling in villages; a maker of pot- 
tery, and a worker in the useful as well as the 
ornamental metals; employing the bow and arrow 
as well as the spear, the typical negro stands high in 
point of civilization above the Australian. 

Eesembling the ISTegroes in cranial characters, 
the BusHMEN" of South Africa differ from them in 
their yellowish brown skins, their tufted hair, their 
remarkably small stature, and their tendency to 
fatty and other integumentary outgrowths; nor is 
the wonderful click with which their speech is in- 
terspersed to be overlooked in enumerating the 
physical characteristics of this strange people. 

The so-called " Dravidian ^^ populations of 
Southern Hindostan lead us back, physically as 
well as geographically^ towards the Australians; * 

[* Of the affinities of these stocks I think there can 
be no doubt. I was formerly inclined to believe that the 
ancient Egyptian was the highest term in an ascending 
series: Australian — Dravidian — Egyptian of allied stocks. 
And I believe still that there is a good deal to be said for 
that hypothesis. One of the most interesting problems at 
present is the relation of the prsesemitic population of 
Babylonia to the Dravidians, on the one hand, and the 
Old Egyptian on the other. Only one point appears to me 
to be quite clear, if the statues of Tell Loh represent these 



METHODS AND RESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY. 235 

while the diminutive Mincopies of the Andaman 
Islands lie midway between the Negro and Ne- 
grito races, and, as Mr. Busk has pointed out, occa- 
sionally present the rare combination of brachy- 
cephaly, or short-headedness, with woolly hair. 

In the preceding progress along the outskirts 
of the habitable world, eleven readily distinguish- 
able stocks, or persistent modifications, of manl^ind, 
have been recognized. I have purposely omitted 
such people as the Abyssinians and the Hindoos 
of the valleys of the Ganges and Indus, who there 
is every reason to believe result from the intermix- 
ture of distinct stocks. Perhaps I ought for like 
reasons, to have ignored the Mincopies. But I 
do not pretend that my enumeration is complete 
or, in any sense, perfect. It is enough for my pur- 
pose if it be admitted (and I think it cannot be 
denied) that those which I have mentioned exist, 
are well marked, and occupy the greater part of the 
habitable globe. 

In attempting to classify these persistent modi- 
fications after the manner of naturalists, the first 
circumstance that attracts one^s attention is the 
broad contrast between the people with straight 
and wavy hair, and those with crisp, woolly, or 
tufted hair. Bory de St. Vincent, noting this 
fundamental distinction, divided mankind accord- 
people; that there is not a trace of Mongolian affinity 
about them.— 1894.] 



236 METHODIS AND RESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY. 

ingly into the two primary groups of Leiotrichi and 
UlotricM, — terms which are open to criticism, but 
which I adopt in the accompanying table, because 
they have been used. It is better for science to 
accept a faulty name which has the merit of exist- 
ence, than to burthen it with a faultless newly in- 
vented one. 

Leiotrichi. Ulotrichi. 



Dolichocephali. Brachycephali. Dolichocepliali. Brachycephali. 
Leucous. 

.... Xanthochroi .... 
Leucomelanous. 

.... Melanochroi .... 
Xanthomelanous. 

Esquimaux. Mongolians. Bushmen. 
Amphinesians. 
Americans. 
Melanous. 

Australians. Negroes. Mincopies (?) 

Negritos. 
*;:;.* The names of the stocks Icnown only since the fifteenth cen- 
tury are put into italics. If the ^' STcrdlings" of the Norse discov- 
erers of America were Esquimaux, Europeans became acquainted 
with the latter six or seven centuries earlier. 

Under each of these divisions are two columns, 
one for the Brachycephali, or short heads, and one 
for the Dolichocephali,* or long heads. Again, 
each column is subdivided transversely into four 
compartments, one for the " leucous,^' people with 

* Skulls, the transverse diameter of whieh is more than 
eight-tenths the long diameter, are short; those which 
have the transverse diameter less than eight-tenths the 
longitudinal, are long. 



METHODS AND RESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY. 237 

fair complexions and yellow or red hair; one for 
the " leucomelanous," with dark hair and pale 
skins; one for the " xanthomelanons/' with black 
hair and yellow, brown, or olive skins; and one for 
the " melanoiis/' with black hair and dark brown 
or blackish skins. 

It is curious to observe that almost all the 
woolly-haired people are also long-headed; while 
among the straight-haired nations broad heads pre- 
ponderate, and only two stocks, the Esquimaux and 
the Australians, are exclusively long-headed. 

One of the acutest and most original of ethnolo- 
gists, Desmoulins, originated the idea, which has 
subsequently been fully developed by Agassiz, that 
the distribution of the persistent modifications of 
man is governed by the same laws as that of other 
animals, and that both fall into the same great dis- 
tributional provinces. Thus, Australia, America, 
south of Mexico; the Arctic regions; Europe, Syria, 
Arabia, and North Africa, taken together, are each, 
regions eminently characterised by the nature of 
their animal and vegetable populations, and each, 
as we have seen, has its peculiar and characteristic 
form of man. But it may be doubted whether the 
parallel thus drawn will hold good strictly, and in 
all cases. The Tasmanian Fauna and Flora are es- 
sentially Australian, and the like is true, to a less 
extent, of many, if not of all, the Papuan islands; 
but the ISTegritos who inhabit these islands are 
strikingly different from the Australians. Again, 



238 METHODS AND RESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY. 

the differences between the Mongolians and the 
Xanthochroi are ont of all proportion greater than 
those between the Faunse and Florae of Central 
•and Eastern Asia. Bnt whatever the difficulties 
in the way of the detailed application of this com- 
parison of the distribution of men with that of 
animals, it is well worthy of being borne in mind, 
and carried as far as it will go. 

Apart from all speculation, a very cnrions fact 
regarding the distribution of the persistent modi- 
fications of mankind becomes apparent on inspect- 
ing an Ethnological chart, projected in such a 
manner that the Pacific Ocean occupies its centre. 
Such a chart exhibits an Australian area occupied 
by dark smooth-haired people, separated by an in- 
complete inner zone of dark woolly-haired Negritos 
and Negroes, from an outer zone of comparatively 
pale and smooth-haired men, occupying the Amer- 
icas, and nearly all Asia * and North Africa, f 

Such is a brief sketch of the characters and dis- 
tribution of the persistent modifications, or stocks, 
of mankind at the present day. If we seek for 
direct evidence of how long this state of things has 
lasted, we shall find little enough, and that little 
far from satisfactory. Of the eleven different 
stocks enumerated, seven have been known to us 
for less than 400 years; and of these seven not one 

[* Hindostan excepted. — 1894.] 
[t Egypt excepted.— 1894.] 



METHODS AND RESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY. 239 

possessed a fragment of written history at the time 
it came into contact with European civilization. 
The other four — the Negroes, Mongohans, 
Xanthochroi, and Melanochroi — have always ex- 
isted in some of the localities in which they are now 
found, nor do the negroes ever seem to have volun- 
tarily travelled beyond the limits of their present 
area. But ancient history is in a great measure 
the record of the mutual encroachments of the 
other three stocks. 

On the whole, however, it is wonderful how 
little change has been effected by these mutual 
invasions and intermixtures. As at the present 
time, so at the dawn of history, the Melanochroi 
fringed the Atlantic and the Mediterranean; the 
Xanthochroi occupied most of Central and 
Eastern Europe, and much of Western and Cen- 
tral Asia; while Mongolians held the extreme 
east of the Old World. So far as history teaches 
us, the populations of Europe, Asia and Africa 
were, twenty * centuries ago, just what they 
are now, in their broad features and general dis- 
tribution. 

The evidence yielded by Archaeology is not 
very definite, but so far as it goes, it is to much 
the same effect. The mound builders of Central 
America seem to have had the characteristic short 
and broad head of the modern inhabitants of that 
continent. The tumuli and tombs of Ancient 

[* We may now safely say thirty or forty. — 1894.] 



240 METHODS AND RESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY. 

Scandinavia, of pre-Roman Britain, of Gaul, of 
Switzerland, reveal two types of skull — a broad 
and a long — of which, in Scandinavia, the broad 
seems to have belonged to the older stock, while 
the reverse was probably the case in Britain, and 
certainly in Switzerland. It has been assumed 
that the broad-skulled people of ancient Scandi- 
navia were Lapps; but there is no proof of the 
fact, and they may have been, like the broad- 
skulled Swiss and G-ermans, Xanthochroi. One of 
the greatest of ethnological difficulties is to know 
where the modern Swedes, Norsemen, and Saxons 
got their long heads, as all their neighbours. Fins, 
Lapps, Slavonians, and South Germans, are broad- 
headed. Again, who were the small-handed * long- 
headed people of the " bronze epoch," and what 
has become of the infusion of their blood among 
the Xanthochroi? 

At present Palaeontology yields no safe data to 
the ethnologist. We know absolutely nothing of 
the ethnological characters of the men of Abbe- 
ville and Hoxne; but must be content with the 
demonstration, in itself of immense value, that 
Man existed in Western Europe when its physical 
condition was widely different from what it is now, 
and when animals existed, which, though they 

[* Supposed to be small-handed from the small handles 
of their bronze swords. But I observe in the Assyrian 
sculptures the same small handles, while the hands are by 
no means small. How did the Assyrians use their swords ? 
So far as I know thrusting alone is represented. — 1894.] 



METHODS AND RESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY. 241 

belong to what is, properly speaking, the present 
order of things, have long been extinct. Beyond 
the limits of a fraction of Europe, Palaeontology 
tells us nothing of man or of his works. 

To sum up our knowledge of the ethnological 
past of man; so far as the light is bright, it shows 
him substantially as he is now; and, when it grows 
dim, it permits us to see no sign that he was other 
than he is now. 

It is a general belief that men of different stocks 
differ as much physiologically as they do morpho- 
logically; but it is very hard to prove, in any par- 
ticular case, how much of a supposed national char- 
acteristic is due to inherent physiological peculiari- 
ties, and how much to the influence of circum- 
stances. There is much evidence to show, how- 
ever, that some stocks enjoy a partial or complete 
immunity from diseases which destroy, or decimate, 
others. Thus there seems good ground for the 
belief that Negroes are remarkably exempt from 
yellow fever; and that, among Europeans, the 
melanochroic people are less obnoxious to its rav- 
ages than the xanthochroic. But many writers, 
not content with physiological differences of this 
kind, undertake to prove the existence of others of 
far greater moment; and, indeed, to show that cer- 
tain stocks of mankind exhibit, more or less dis- 
tinctly, the physiological characters of true species. 
Unions between these stocks, and still more be- 
tween the half-breeds arising from their mixture, 
180 



242 METHODS AND RESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY. 

are affirmed to be either infertile, or less fertile 
than those which take place between males and fe- 
males of either stock under the same circum- 
stances. Some go so far as to assert that no mixed 
breeds of mankind can maintain themselves with- 
out the assistance of one or other of the parent 
stocks, and that, consequently, they must inevit- 
ably be obliterated in the long run. 

Here, again, it is exceedingly difficult to obtain 
trustworthy evidence and to free the effects of the 
pure physiological experiment from adventitious 
influences. The only trial which, by a strange 
chance, was kept clear of all such influences — the 
only instance in which two distinct stocks of man- 
kind were crossed, and their progeny intermarried 
without any admixture from without — is the fa- 
mous case of the Pitcairn Islanders, who were the 
progeny of Bligh's English sailors by Tahitian 
women. The results of this experiment, as every- 
body knows, are dead against those who maintain 
the doctrine of human hybridity, seeing that the 
Pitcairn Islanders, even though they necessarily 
contracted consanguineous marriages, throve and 
multiplied exceedingly. 

But those who are disposed to believe in this 
doctrine should study the evidence brought forward 
in its support by M. Broca, its latest and ablest 
advocate, and compare this evidence with that 
which the botanists, as represented by a Gaertner 
or by a Darwin, think it indispensable to obtain 



METHODS AND RESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY. 243 

before they will admit the infertility of crosses 
between two allied kinds of plants. They will 
then, I think, be satisfied that the doctrine in ques- 
tion rests upon a very unsafe foundation; that 
the facts adduced in its support are capable of 
many other interpretations; and, indeed, that from 
the very nature of the case, demonstrative evidence 
one way or the other is almost unattainable. 
A priori, I should be disposed to expect a certain 
amount of infertility between some of the extreme 
modifications of mankind; and still more between 
the offsprings of their intermixture. A posteriori, 
I cannot discover any satisfactory proof that such 
infertility exists. 

From the facts of ethnology I now turn to the 
theories and speculations of ethnologists, which 
have been devised to explain these facts, and to 
furnish satisfactory answers to the inquiry — what 
conditions have determined the existence of the 
persistent modifications of mankind, and have 
caused their distribution to be what it is? 

These speculations may be grouped under three 
heads: firstly, the Monogenist hypotheses; second- 
ly, those of the Polygenists; and thirdly, that which 
would result from a simple application of Darwin- 
ian principles to mankind. 

According to the Monogenists, all mankind 
have sprung from a single pair, whose multitudi- 
nous progeny spread themselves over the world, 
such as it now is, and became modified into the 



244 METHODS AND EESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY. 

forms we meet with in the various regions of the 
earth, by the effect of the climatal and other condi- 
tions to w^hich they were subjected. 

The advocates of this hypothesis are divisible 
into several schools. There are those who repre- 
sent the most numerous, respectable, and would-be 
orthodox of the public, and are what may be called 
'' Adamites,^' pure and simple. They believe that 
Adam was made out of earth somewhere in Asia, 
about six thousand years ago; that Eve was 
modelled from one of his ribs; and that the progeny 
of these two having been reduced to the eight per- 
sons who were landed on the summit of Mount 
Ararat after an universal deluge, all the nations 
of the earth have proceeded from these last, have 
migrated to their present localities, and have be- 
come converted into Negroes, Australians, Mongo- 
lians, &c., within that time. Five-sixths of the 
public are taught this Adamitic Monogenism, as 
if it were an established truth, and believe it. I 
do not; and I am not acquainted with any man of 
science, or duly instructed person, who does. 

A second school of monogenists, not worthy of 
much attention, attempts to hold a place midway 
between the Adamites and a third division, who 
take up a purely scientific position, and require to 
be dealt with accordingly. This third division, in 
fact, numbers in its ranks Linnaeus, Buffon, 
Blumenbach, Cuvier, Prichard, and many distin- 
guished living ethnologists. 



METHODS AND RESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY. 245 

These " Rational Monogenists," or, at any rate, 
the more modern among them, hold, firstly, that 
the present condition of the earth has existed for 
untold ages; secondly, that, at a remote period, be- 
yond the ken of Archbishop Usher, man was cre- 
ated, somewhere between the Caucasus and the 
Hindoo Koosh; thirdly, that he might have mi- 
grated thence to all parts of the inhabited world, 
seeing that none of them are unattainable from 
some other inhabited part, by men provided with 
only such means of transport as savages are known 
to possess and must have invented; fourthly, that 
the operation of the existing diversities of climate 
and other conditions upon people so migrating, is 
sufficient to account for all the diversities of man- 
kind. 

Of the truth of the first of these propositions 
no competent judge now entertains any doubt. 
The second is more open to discussion; for, in these 
latter days, many question the special creation of 
man: and even if his special creation be granted, 
there is not a shadow of a reason why he should 
have been created in Asia rather than anywhere 
else. Of all the odd myths that have arisen in 
the scientific world, the " Caucasian mystery,^' in- 
vented quite innocently by Blumenbach, is the 
oddest. A Georgian woman's skull was the 
handsomest in his collection. Hence it became 
his model exemplar of human skulls, from which 
all others might be regarded as deviations; and 



246 METHODS AND RESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY. 

out of this, by some strange intellectual hocus- 
pocus, grew up the notion that the Caucasian man 
is the prototypic " Adamic " man, and his coun- 
try the primitive centre of our kind. Perhaps 
the most curious thing of all is, that the said 
Georgian skull, after all, is not a skull of average 
form, but distinctly belongs to the brachycephalic 
group. 

With the third proposition I am quite disposed 
to agree, though it must be recollected that it is 
one thing to allow that a given migration is 
possible, and another to admit there is good 
reason to believe it has really taken place. 

But I can find no sufficient ground for accept- 
ing the fourth proposition; and I doubt if it would 
ever have obtained its general currency except for 
the circumstance that fair Europeans are very 
readily tanned and embrowned by the sun. Yet 
I am not aware that there is a particle of proof that 
the cutaneous change thus effected can become 
hereditary, any more than that the enlarged livers, 
which plague our countrymen in India, can be 
transmitted; while there is very strong evidence 
to the contrary. Not only, in fact, are there such 
cases as those of the English families in Barbadoes, 
who have remained for six generations unaltered 
in complexion, but which are open to the objection 
that they may have received infusions of fresh Eu- 
ropean blood; but there is the broad fact, that not 
a single indigenous Negro exists either in the great 



METHODS AND RESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY. 247 

alluvial plains of tropical South America^ or in the 
exposed islands of the Polynesian Archipelago, or 
among the populations of equatorial Borneo or 
Sumatra. No satisfactory explanation of these 
obvious difficulties has been offered by the ad- 
vocates of the direct influence of conditions. And 
as for the more important modifications observed 
in the structure of the brain, and in the form of the 
skull, no one has ever pretended to show in what 
way they can be effected directly by climate. 

It is here, in fact, that the strength of the Poly- 
genists, or those who maintain that men primi- 
tively arose, not from one, but from many stocks, 
lies. Show us, they say to the Monogenists, a 
single case in which the characters of a human 
stock have been essentially modified without its 
being demonstrable, or, at least, highly probable, 
that there has been intermixture of blood with 
some foreign stock. Bring forward any instance 
in which a part of the world, formerly inhabited 
by one stock, is now the dwelling-place of another, 
and we will prove the change to be the result of 
migration, or of intermixture, and not of modifica- 
tion of character by climatic influences. Finally, 
prove to us that the evidence in favour of the spe- 
cific distinctness of many animals, admitted to be 
distinct species by all zoologists, is a whit better 
than that upon which we maintain the specific dis- 
tinctness of men. 

If presenting unanswerable objections to your 



248 METHODS AND RESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY. 

adversary were the same thing as proving your 
own case, the Polygenists would be in a fair way 
towards victory; but, unfortunately, as I have 
already observed, they have as yet completely 
failed to adduce satisfactory positive proof of the 
specific diversity of mankind. Like the Monoge- 
nists, the Polygenists are of several sects; some 
imagine that their assumed species of mankind 
were created where we find them — the African in 
Africa, and the Australian in Australia, along 
with the other animals of their distributional 
province; others conceive that each species of 
man has resulted from the modification of some 
antecedent species of ape — the American from the 
broad-nosed Simians of the New World, the Afri- 
can from the Troglodytic stock, the Mongolian 
from the Orangs. 

The first hypothesis is hardly likely to win 
much favour. The whole tendency of modern sci- 
ence is to thrust the origination of things further 
and further into the background; and the chief 
philosophical objection to Adam being, not his 
oneness, but the hypothesis of his special creation; 
the multiplication of that objection tenfold is, 
whatever it may look, an increase, instead of a 
diminution, of the difficulties of the case. And, as 
to the second alternative, it may safely be affirmed 
that, even if the differences between men are spe- 
cific, they are so small, that the assumption of more 
than one primitive stock for all is altogether super- 



METHODS AND RESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY. 249 

fluous. Surely no one can now be found to assert 
that any two stocks of mankind differ as much as a 
chimpanzee and an orang do; still less that they are 
as unlike as either of these is to any New World 
Simian! 

Lastly, the granting of the Polygenist premises 
does not, in the slightest degree, necessitate the 
Polygenist conclusion. Admit that Negroes and 
Australians, Negritos and Mongols are distinct spe- 
cies, or distinct genera, if you will, and you may 
yet, with perfect consistency, be the strictest of 
Monogenists, and even believe in Adam and Eve as 
the primaeval parents of all mankind. 

It is to Mr. Darwin we owe this discovery: it is 
he who, coming forward in the guise of an eclectic 
philosopher, presents his doctrine as the key to 
ethnology, and as reconciling and combining all 
that is good in the Monogenistic and Polygenistic 
schools. It is true that Mr. Darwin has not, in so 
many words, applied his views to ethnology; but 
even he who " runs and reads " the " Origin of 
Species" can hardly fail to do so; and, further- 
more, Mr. Wallace and M. Pouchet have recently 
treated of ethnological questions from this point 
of view. Let me, in conclusion, add my own con- 
tribution to the same store. 

I assume Man to have arisen in the manner 
which I have discussed elsewhere, and probably, 
though by no means necessarily, in one locality. 
Whether he arose singly, or a number of examples 



250 METHODS AND RESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY. 

appeared contemporaneously, is also an open ques- 
tion for the believer in the production of species 
by the gradual modification of pre-existing ones. 
At what epoch of the world's history this took 
place, again, we have no evidence whatever. It 
may have been in the older tertiary, or earlier; 
but what is most important to remember is, that 
the discoveries of late years have proved that man 
inhabited Western Europe, at any rate, before the 
occurrence of those great physical changes which 
have given Europe its present aspect. And as 
the same evidence shows that man was the con- 
temporary of animals which are now extinct, it 
is not too much to assume that his existence 
dates back at least as far as that of our present 
Fauna and Flora, or before the epoch of the 
drift. 

But if this be true, it is somewhat startling to 
reflect upon the prodigious changes which have 
taken place in the physical geography of this 
planet since man has been an occupant of it. 

During that period the greater part of the 
British islands, of Central Europe, of Northern 
Asia, have been submerged beneath the sea and 
raised up again. So has the great desert of Sahara, 
which occupies the major part of Northern Africa.* 
The Caspian and the Aral seas have been one, and 
their united waters have probably communicated 

[* Later investigations tend to show that only a small 
part of the Sahara has been submerged. — 1894.] 



METHODS AND RESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY. 251 

with both the Arctic and the Mediterranean 
oceans.* The greater part of North America has 
been under water, and has emerged. It is highly 
probable that a large part of the Malayan Archi- 
pelago has sunk, and that its primitive continuity 
with Asia has been destroyed. Over the great 
Polynesian area subsidence has taken place to the 
extent of many thousands of feet — subsidence of 
so vast a character, in fact, that if a continent like 
Asia had once occupied the area of the Pacific, the 
peaks of its mountains would now show not more 
numerous than the islands of the Polynesian Archi- 
pelago f 

What lands may have been thickly populated 
for untold ages, and subsequently have disappeared 
and left no sign above the waters, it is of course 
impossible for us to say; but unless we are to make 
the wholly unjustifiable assumption that no dry 
land rose elsewhere when our present dry land sank, 
there must be half-a-dozen Atlantises beneath the 
waves of the various oceans of the world. But if 
the regions which have undergone these slow and 
gradual, but immense alterations, were wholly or 
in part inhabited before the changes I have indi- 
cated began — and it is more probable that they 

[* With reference to certain reclamations that have 
been made ci propos of a speculation set forth in the essay 
on the Aryan Question {infra), I draw attention to the 
fact that this passage was written twenty-nine years ago. 
—1894.] 

[t The occurrence of this extensive subsidence is dis- 
puted.— 1894.] 



252 METHODS AND RESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY. 

were than that they were not — what a wonderfully 
eflS-cient " Emigration Board " miist have been at 
work all over the world long before canoes, or even 
rafts, were invented; and before men were impelled 
to wander by any desire nobler or stronger than 
hunger. And as these rude and primitive families 
were thrust, in the course of long series of genera- 
tions, from land to land, impelled by encroach- 
ments of sea or of marsh, or by severity of summer 
heat or winter cold, to change their positions, what 
opportunities must have been offered for the play 
of natural selection, in preserving one family varia- 
tion and destroying another! 

Suppose, for example, that some families of a 
horde which had reached a land charged with the 
seeds of yellow fever, varied in the direction of 
woolliness of hair and darkness of skin. Then, if 
it be true that these physical characters are accom- 
panied by comparative or absolute exemptions 
from that scourge, the inevitable tendency would 
be to the preservation and multiplication of the 
darker and woollier families, and the elimination of 
the whiter and smoother haired. In fact, by the 
operation of causes precisely similar to those which, 
in the famous instance cited by Mr. Darwin, have 
given rise to a race of black pigs in the forests of 
Louisiana, a negro stock would eventually people 
the region.* Again, how often, by such physical 

[* Mr. Pearson, in his very interesting work On Na- 
tional Life and Character, justly dwells upon the ob- 



METHODS AND RESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY. 253 

changes, mnst a stock have been isolated from all 
others for innumerable generations, and have 
found ample time for the hereditary hardening of 
its special peculiarities into the enduring charac- 
ters of a persistent modification. 

Nor, if it be true that the physiological differ- 
ences of species may be produced by variation and 
natural selection, as Mr. Darwin supposes, would it 
be at all astonishing, if, in some of these separated 
stocks, the process of differentiation should have 
gone so far as to give rise to the phenomena of 
hybridity. In the face of the overwhelming 
evidence in favour of the unity of the origin of 
mankind afforded by anatomical considerations, 
satisfactory proof of the existence of any degree of 
sterility in the unions of members of two of the 
" persistent modifications " of mankind, might well 
be appealed to by Mr. Darwin as crucial evidence 
of the truth of his views regarding the origin of 
species in general. • 

stacles to the existence of the white races within the 
Tropics. There is, however, this point to be considered, 
that the fevers to which the white men succumb are 
probably caused by microbes; and that modern thera- 
peutic science is daily teaching us more and more about 
the ways of obtaining immunity from or alleviating these 
attacks. What would become of black competition if 
fever "vaccination" proved efi'ectual? — 1894.] 



0¥ SOME FIXED POINTS IN BRITISH 
ETHNOLOGY. 

[1871.] 

In view of the many discussions to which, the 
complicated problems offered by the ethnology of 
the British Islands have given rise, it may be use- 
ful to attempt to pick out, from amidst the con- 
fused masses of assertion and of inference, those 
propositions which appear to rest upon a secure 
foundation, and to state the evidence by which 
they are supported. Such is the purpose of the 
present paper. 

Some of these well-based propositions relate to 
the physical characters of the people of Britain 
and their neighbours; while others concern the 
languages which they spoke. I shall deal, in the 
first place, with the physical questions. 

I. Eighteen hundred years ago the population 
of Britain comprised people of two types of com- 
plexion — the one fair, and the other dark. The 
254 



V BRITISH ETHNOLOGY. 255 

darh people resembled the Aquitani and the Iheri- 
ansj the fair people were like the Belgic Gauls. 

The chief direct evidence of the truth of this 
proposition is the well-known passage of Tacitus: — 

" Ceterum Britanniam qui mortales initio coluerint, 
indigenae an adveeti, ut inter barbaros, parum eompertum. 
Habitus corporum varii: atque ex eo argumenta: namque 
rutilse Caledoniam habitantium eomse, magni artus, Ger- 
manieam originem asseverant. Silurum colorati vultus 
et torti plerumque crines, et posita contra Hispania, 
Iberos veteres trajecisse, easque sedes occupasse, Mem 
faciunt. Proximi Gallis et similes sunt; seu durante 
originis vi, seu procurrentibus in diversa terris, positio 
coeli corporibus habitum dedit. In universum tamen sesti- 
manti, Gallos vicinum solum occupasse, eredibile est; 
eorum sacra deprehendas, superstitionum persuasione; 
sermo baud multum diversus." * 

This passage, it will be observed, contains state- 
ments as to facts, and certain conclusions deduced 
from these facts. The matters of fact asserted are : 
firstly, that the inhabitants of Britain exhibit 
much diversity in their physical characters; sec- 
ondly, that the Caledonians are red-haired and 
large-limbed, like the Germans; thirdly, that the 
Silures have curly hair and dark complexions, like 
the people of Spain; fourthly, that the British peo- 
ple nearest Gaul resemble the " Galli/^ 

Tacitus, therefore, states positively what the 
Caledonians and Silures were like; but the inter- 
pretation of what he says about the other Britons 

* Tacitus Agricola, c. 11. 



256 BRITISH ETHNOLOGY. v 

must depend upon what we learn from other 
sources as to the characters of these " Galli/^ Here 
the testimony of " divus Julius " comes in with 
great force and appropriateness. Caesar writes: — 

" Britannise pars interior ab iis incolitur, quos natos in 
insula ipsi memoria proditum dicunt : marituma pars ab 
iis, qui prsedse ac belli inferendi causa ex Belgio transie- 
rant; qui omnes fere iis nominibus civitatum appellantur 
quibus orti ex civitatibus eo pervenerunt, et bello inlato 
ibi permanserunt atque agros eolere eoeperunt." * 

From these passages it is obvious that^ in the 
opinion of Caesar and Tacitus^ the southern Britons 
resembled the northern Gauls, and especially the 
Belg£e; and the evidence of Strabo is decisive as 
to the characters in which the two people resem- 
bled one another: " The men [of Britain] are taller 
than the Kelts, with hair less yellow; they are 
slighter in their persons/^ f 

The evidence adduced appears to leave no rea- 
sonable ground for doubting that, at the time of 
the Eoman conquest, Britain contained people of 
two types, the one dark and the other fair com- 
plexioned, and that there was a certain difference 
between the latter in the north and in the south 
of Britain: the northern folk being, in the judg- 
ment of Tacitus, or, more properly, according to 
the information he had received from Agricola and 
others, more similar to the Germans than the lat- 

* De Bello Galileo, v. 12. 

t The Geography of Strabo. Translated by Hamilton 
and Falconer, v. 5. 



V BRITISH ETHNOLOGY. 257 

ter. As to the distribution of these stocks, all that 
is clear is, that the dark people were predominant 
in certain parts of the west of the southern half 
of Britain, while the fair stock appears to have 
furnished the chief elements of the population 
elsewhere. 

No ancient writer troubled himself with mea- 
suring skulls, and therefore there is no direct evi- 
dence as to the cranial characters of the fair and 
the dark stocks. The indirect evidence is not very 
satisfactory. The tumuli of Britain of pre-Eoman 
date have yielded two extremely different forms of 
skull, the one broad and the other long; and the 
same variety has been observed in the skulls of 
the ancient Gauls.* The suggestion is obvious 
that the one form of skull may have been associated 
with the fair, and the other with the dark, com- 
plexion. But any conclusion of this kind is at once 
checked by the reflection that the extremes of long 
and short-headedness are to be met with among 
the fair inhabitants of Germany and of Scandinavia 
at the present day — the south-western Germans 
and the Swiss being markedly broad-headed, while 
the Scandinavians are as predominantly long- 
headed. 

What the natives of Ireland were like at the 
time of the Roman conquest of Britain, and for 
centuries afterwards, we have no certain knowl- 

* See Dr. Thurman " On the Two principal Forms of 
Ancient British and Gaulish Skulls." 

181 



258 BRITISH ETHNOLOGY. t 

edge; but the earliest trustworthy records prove 
the existence, side by side with one another, of a 
fair and a dark stock, in Ireland as in Britain. The 
long form of skull is predominant among the an- 
cient, as among modern, Irish. 

II. The people termed Gauls, and those called 
Germans, hy the Romaris, did not differ in any 
important physical character. 

The terms in which the ancient writers describe 
both Grauls and Grermans are identical. They are 
always tall people, with massive limbs, fair skins, 
fierce blue eyes, and hair the colour of which 
ranges from red to yellow. Zeuss, the great 
authority on these matters, affirms broadly that no 
distinction in bodily feature is to be found between 
the Gauls, the Germans, and the Wends, so far as 
their characters are recorded by the old historians; 
and he proves his case by citations from a cloud of 
witnesses. 

An attempt has been made to show that the 
colour of the hair of the Gauls must have differed 
very much from that which obtained among the 
Germans, on the strength of the story told by Sue- 
tonius {Caligula, 4), that Caligula tried to pass off 
Gauls for Germans by picking out the tallest, and 
making then "rutilare et summittere comam.'^ 

The Baron de Belloguet remarks upon this pas- 



" It was in the very north of Gaul, and near the sea, 
that Caligula got up this military comedy. And the fact 



V BRITISH ETHNOLOGY. 259 

proves that the Belgas were already sensibly different 
from their ancestors, whom Strabo had found almost 
identical with their hrothers on the other side of the 
Rhine." 

But the fact recorded by Suetonius, if fact it 
be, proves nothing; for the Germans themselves 
were in the habit of reddening their hair. Ammi- 
anus Marcellinus * tells how, in the year 367 a. d., 
the Roman commander, Jovinus, surprised a body 
of Alemanni near the town now called Charpeigne, 
in the valley of the Moselle; and how the Eoman 
soldiers, as, concealed by the thick wood, they stole 
upon their unsuspecting enemies, saw that some 
were bathing and others " comas rutilantes ex 
more.^' More than two centuries earlier Pliny 
gives indirect evidence to the same effect when he 
says of soap: — 

" Galliarum hoc inventum rutilandis capillis . . . apud 
Germanos majore in usu viris quam foeminis." f 

Here we have a writer who flourished not very 
long after the date of the Caligula story, telling us 
that the Gauls invented soap for the purpose of 
doing that which, according to Suetonius, Caligula 
forced them to do. And, further, the combined 
and independent testimony of Pliny and Ammianus 
assures us that the Germans were as much in the 
habit of reddening their hair as the Gauls. As 
to De Belloguet's supposition that, even in Cal- 

* lies QestcB, xxvii. ^ Eistoria Naturalis, xxviii. 51. 



260 BEITISH ETHNOLOaY. v 

igula^s time, the Gauls had become darker than 
their ancestors were, it is directly contradicted by 
Ammianus Marcellinus, who knew the Ganls well. 
" Celsioris statnrae et candidi poene Galli sunt 
omnes, et rutili, Inminumqne torvitate terribiles/' 
is his description; and it would fit the Gauls who 
sacked Eome. 

III. In none of the invasions of Britain which 
have taken place since the Roman dominion, has 
any other type of man heen introduced than one 
or other of the two which existed during that 
dominion. 

The N'orth Germans, who effected what is com- 
monly called the Saxon conquest of Britain, were, 
most assuredly, a fair, yellow, or red-haired, blue- 
eyed, long-skulled people. So were the Danes and 
the Norsemen who followed them; though it is 
very possible that the active slave trade which went 
on, and the intercourse with Ireland, may have 
introduced a certain admixture of the dark stock 
into both Denmark and Norway. The Norman 
conquest brought in new ethnological elements, the 
precise value of which cannot be estimated with 
exactness; but as to their quality, there can be 
no question, inasmuch as even the wide area from 
which William drew his followers could yield him 
nothing but the fair and the dark types of men, 
already present in Britain. But whether the 
Norman settlers, on the whole, strengthened the 
fair or the dark element, is a problem, the ele- 



V BRITISH ETHNOLOGY. 261 

ments of the solution of which are not attain- 
able. 

I am nnable to discover any grounds for believ- 
ing that a Lapp element has ever entered into the 
population of these islands. So far as the physical 
evidence goes, it is perfectly consistent with the 
hypothesis that the only constituent stocks of that 
population, now, or at any other period about 
which we have evidence, are the dark whites, 
whom I have proposed to call " Melanochroi/' and 
the fair whites, or " XantJiochroiJ' 

IV. The Xanthochroi and the Melanochroi of 
Britain are, speaking broadly, distributed, at pres- 
ent, as they were in the time of Tacitus; and their 
representatives on the continent of Europe have 
the same general distribution as at the earliest 
period of which we have any record. 

At the present day, and notwithstanding the 
extensive intermixture effected by the movements 
consequent on civilization and on political changes, 
there is a predominance of dark men in the west, 
and of fair men in the east and north, of Britain. 
At the present day, as from the earliest times, the 
predominant constituents of the riverain popula- 
tion of the North Sea and the eastern half of the 
British Channel, are fair men. The fair stock con- 
tinues in force through Central Europe, until it is 
lost in Central Asia. Offshoots of this stock ex- 
tend into Spain, Italy, and Northern India, and 
by way of Syria and North Africa, to the Canary 



262 BRITISH ETHNOLOGY. v 

Islands. They were known in very early times to 
the Chinese, and in still earlier to the ancient 
Egyptians, as frontier tribes. The Thracians were 
notorious for their fair hair and bine eyes many 
centuries before our era. 

On the other hand, the dark stock predominates 
in Southern and Western France, in Spain, along 
the Ligurian shore, and in Western and Southern 
Italy; in Greece, Asia, Syria, and North Africa; 
in Arabia, Persia, Afghanistan, and Hindostan, 
shading gradually, through all stages of darkening, 
into the type of the modern Egyptian, or of the 
wild Hill-man of the Dekkan. Nor is there any 
record of the existence of a different population 
in all these countries. 

The extreme north of Europe, and the northern 
part of Western Asia, are at present occupied by 
a Mongoloid stock, and, in the absence of evidence 
to the contrary, may be assumed to have been so 
peopled from a very remote epoch. But, as I have 
said, I can find no evidence that this stock ever 
took part in peopling Britain. Of the three great 
stocks of mankind which extend from the western 
coast of the great Eurasiatic continent to its south- 
ern and eastern shores, the Mongoloids occupy a 
vast triangle, the base of which is the whole of 
Eastern Asia, while its apex lies in Lapland. The 
Melanochroi, on the other hand, may be repre- 
sented as a broad band stretching from Ireland to 
Hindostan; while the Xanthochroic area lies be- 



V BRITISH ETHNOLOGY. 2^3 

tween the two, thins out, so to speak, at either end, 
and mingles, at its margins, with both its neigh- 
bours. 

Such is a brief and summary statement of what 
I believe to be the chief facts relating to the physical 
ethnology of the people of Britain, The conclu- 
sions which I draw from these and other facts are 
— (1) That the Melanochroi and the Xanthochroi 
are two separate races in the biological sense of 
the word race; (2) That they have had the same 
general distribution as at present from the earliest 
times of which any record exists on the continent 
of Europe; (3) That the population of the British 
Islands is derived from them, and from them 
only. 

The people of Europe, however, owe their na- 
tional names, not to their physical characteristics, 
but to their languages, or to their political rela- 
tions; which, it is plain, need not have the slightest 
relation to these characteristics. 

Thus, it is quite certain that, in Caesar's time, 
Gaul was divided politically into three nationali- 
ties — the Belgge, the Celtse, and the Aquitani; and 
that the last were 'very widely different, both in 
language and in physical characteristics, from the 
two former. The Belgse and the Celt^, on the 
other hand, differed comparatively little either in 
physique or in language. On the former point 
there is the distinct testimony of Strabo; as to the 
latter, St. Jerome states that the " Galatians had 



264: BRITISH ETHNOLOGY. v 

almost the same language as the Treviri." Now, 
the Galatians were emigrant Yolcae Tectosages, and 
therefore Celtae; while the Treviri were Belgge.* 

At the present day, the physical characters of 
the people of Belgic Ganl remain distinct from 
those of the people of Aquitaine, notwithstanding 
the immense changes which have taken place since 
Caesar's time; but Belgse, Celtse, and Aquitani (all 
but a mere fraction of the last two, represented 
by the Basques and the Bretons) are fused into one 
nationality, " le peuple Frangais/' But they have 
adopted the language of one set of invaders, and 
the name of another; their original names and lan- 
guages having almost disappeared. Suppose that 
the French language remained as the sole evidence 
of the existence of the population of Gaul, would 
the keenest philologer arrive at any other conclu- 
sion than that this population was essentially and 
fundamentally a " Latin '^ race, which had had 
some communication with Celts and Teutons? 
Would he so much as suspect the former existence 
of the Aquitani? 

Community of language testifies to close con- 
tact between the people who speak the language, 
but to nothing else; philology has absolutely noth- 
ing to do with ethnology, except so far as it sug- 
gests the existence or the absence of such contact. 
The contrary assumption, that language is a test 
of race, has introduced the utmost confusion into 

[* This proposition is disputed. — 1894.] 



V BRITISH ETHNOLOGY. 265 

ethnological speculation, and has nowhere worked 
greater scientific and practical mischief than in 
the ethnology of the British Islands. 

What is known, for certain, about the languages 
spoken in these islands and their affinities may, I 
believe, be summed up as follows: — 

I. At the time of the Roman conquest, one lan- 
guage, the Celtic, under two principal dialectical 
divisions, the Cymric and the Gaelic, was spoTcen 
throughout the British Islands. Cymric was 
spolcen in Britainj Gaelic * in Ireland. 

If a language allied to Basque had in earlier 
times been spoken in the British Islands, there is 
no evidence that any Euskarian-speaking people 
remained at the time of the Roman conquest. The 
dark and the fair population of Britain alike spoke 
Celtic tongues, and therefore the name " Celt " is 
as applicable to the one as to the other. 

What was spoken in Ireland can only be sur- 
mised by reasoning from the knowledge of later 
times; but there seems to be no doubt that it was 
Gaelic. 

II. The Belgce and the Celtce, with the offshoots 
of the latter in Asia Minor, spoTce dialects of the 
Cymric division of Celtic. 

The evidence of this proposition lies in the 

[* I have been told that the terms " Cymric " and 
" Gaelic " are antiquated and improper. The reader will 
please substitute Celtic dialect A and Celtic dialect B for 
them, and consult, on this subject, especially with regard 
to proposition III., Professor Ehys' Early Britain. — 1894.] 



266 BRITISH ETHNOLOGY. v 

statement of St. Jerome before cited; in the 
similarity of the names of places in Belgic Gaul 
and in Britain; and in the direct comparison of 
sundry ancient Gaulish and Belgic words which 
have been preserved, with the existing Cymric 
dialects, for which I must refer to the learned work 
of Brandes. 

Formerly, as at the present day, the Cymric 
dialects of Celtic were spoken by both the fair and 
the dark stocks. 

III. There is no record of Gaelic being spoken 
anywhere save in Ireland, Scotland, and the Isle of 
Man. 

This appears to be the final result of the long 
discussions which have taken place on this much- 
debated question. As is the case with the Cymric 
dialects, Gaelic is now spoken by both dark and 
fair stocks. 

ly. When the Teutonic languages first became 
"known, they were spoken only * hy Xanthochroi, 
that is to say, by the Germans, the Scandinavians, 
and Goths. And they were imported by Xantho- 
chroi into Gaul and into Britain. 

In Gaul, the imported Teutonic dialect has been 
completely overpowered by the more or less modi- 
fied Latin, which it found already in possession; 
and what Teutonic blood there may be in modern 
Frenchmen is not adequately represented in their 

[* " Only " is too strong a word, as there were doubt- 
less some Melanochroi among the Teutonic tribes. — 1894.] 



V BRITISH ETHNOLOGY. 267 

language. In Britain, on the contrary, the Teu- 
tonic dialects have overpowered the pre-existing 
forms of speech, and the people are vastly less 
" Teutonic " than their language. Whatever may 
have been the extent to which the Celtic-speaking 
population of the eastern half of Britain was trod- 
den out and supplanted by the Teutonic-speaking 
Saxons and Danes, it is quite certain that no con- 
siderable displacement of the Celtic-speaking peo- 
ple occurred in Cornwall, Wales, or the Highlands 
of Scotland; and that nothing approaching to the 
extinction of that people took place in Devonshire, 
Somerset, or the western moiety of Britain gen- 
erally. Nevertheless, the fundamentally Teutonic 
English language is now spoken throughout Brit- 
ain, except by an insignificant fraction of the popu- 
lation in Wales and the Western Highlands. But 
it is obvious that this fact affords not the slightest 
justification for the common practice of speaking 
of the present inhabitants of Britain as an " Anglo- 
Saxon " race. It is, in fact, just as absurd as the 
habit of talking of the French people as a " Latin " 
race, because they speak a language which is, in 
the main, derived from Latin. And the absurdity 
becomes the more patent when those who have no 
hesitation in calling a Devonshire man, or a Cor- 
nish man, an " Anglo- Saxon,'' would think it ridic- 
ulous to call a Tipperary man by the same title, 
though he and his forefathers may have spoken 
English for as long a time as the Cornish man. 



268 BRITISH ETHNOLOGY. v 

Ireland, at the earliest period of which we have 
any knowledge, contained, like Britain, a dark and 
a fair stock, which, there is every reason to believe, 
were identical with the dark and the fair stocks 
of Britain. When the Irish first became known 
they spoke a Gaelic dialect, and though, for many 
centuries, Scandinavians made continual incursions 
upon, and settlements among them, the Teutonic 
languages made no more way among the Irish than 
they did among the French. How much Scandi- 
navian blood was introduced there is no evidence to 
show. But after the conquest of Ireland by Henry 
II., the English people, consisting in part of the 
descendants of Cymric speakers, and in part of the 
descendants of Teutonic speakers, made good their 
footing in the eastern half of the island, as the 
Saxons and Danes made good theirs in England; 
and did their best to complete the parallel by at- 
tempting the extirpation of the Gaelic-speaking 
Irish. And they succeeded to a considerable ex- 
tent; a large part of Eastern Ireland is now peopled 
by men who are substantially English by descent, 
and the English language has spread over the land 
far beyond the limits of English blood. 

Ethnologically, the Irish people were originally, 
like the people of Britain, a mixture of Melano- 
ehroi and Xanthochroi. They resembled the Brit- 
ons in speaking a Celtic tongue; but it was a Gaelic 
and not a Cymric form of the Celtic language. Ire- 
land was untouched by the Eoman conquest, nor 



V BRITISH ETHNOLOGY. 269 

do the Saxons seem to have had any influence upon 
her destinies, but the Danes and Norsemen poured 
in a contingent of Teutonism^ which has been large- 
ly supplemented by English and Scotch efforts. 

What, then, is the value of the ethnological 
difference between the Englishman of the western 
half of England and the Irishman of the eastern 
half of Ireland ? For what reason does the one de- 
serve the name of a " Celt," and not the other? 
And further, if we turn to the inhabitants of the 
western half of Ireland, why should the term 
'' Celts " be applied to them more than to the in- 
habitants of Cornwall? And if the name is ap- 
plicable to the one as justly as to the other, why 
should not intelligence, perseverance, thrift, indus- 
try, sobriety, respect for law, be admitted to be 
Celtic virtues? And why should we not seek for 
the cause of their absence in something else than 
the idle pretext of " Celtic blood "? 

I have been unable to meet with any answers to 
these questions. 

V- The Celtic and the Teutonic dialects are 
members of the same great Aryan family of lan- 
guages; hut there is evidence to show that a non- 
Aryan language was at one time spoken over a 
large extent of the area occupied by Melanochroi in 
Europe. 

The non- Aryan language here referred to is the 
Euskarian, now spoken only by the Basques, but 
which seems in earlier times to have been the Ian- 



270 BRITISH ETHKOLOGY. v 

guage of the Aquitanians and Spaniards, and may 
possibly have extended much further to the East. 
Whether it has any connection with the Lignrian 
and Oscan dialects are questions upon which, of 
course, I do not presume to offer any opinion. But 
it is important to remark that it is a language the 
area of which has gradually diminished without any 
corresponding extirpation of the people who primi- 
tively spoke it; so that the people of Spain and of 
Aquitaine at the present day must be largely " Eu- 
skarian " by descent in just the same sense as the 
Cornish men are " Celtic " by descent. 

Such seem to me to be the main facts respect- 
ing the ethnology of the British islands and of 
Western Europe, which may be said to be fairly 
established. The hypothesis by which I think 
(with De Belloguet and Thurnam) the facts may 
best be explained is this: In very remote times 
Western Europe and the British islands were inhab- 
ited by the dark stock, or the Melanochroi, alone, 
and these Melanochroi spoke dialects allied to the 
Euskarian. The Xanthochroi, spreading over the 
great Eurasiatic plains westward, and speaking 
Aryan dialects, gradually invaded the territories 
of the Melanochroi. The Xanthochroi, who thus 
came into contact with the Western Melanochroi, 
spoke a Celtic language; and that Celtic language, 
whether Cymric or G-aelic, spread over the Melano- 
chroi far beyond the limits of intermixture of blood, 
supplanting Euskarian, just as English and French 



V BRITISH ETHNOLOGY. 271 

have supplanted Celtic. Even as early as Cassar's 
time, I suppose that the Enskarian was everywhere, 
except in Spain and in Aqnitaine, replaced by Cel- 
tic, and thus the Celtic speakers were no longer of 
one ethnological stock, but of two. Both in West- 
ern Europe and in England a third wave of lan- 
guage — in the one case Latin, in the other Teu- 
tonic — has spread over the same area. In Western 
Europe, it has left a fragment of the primary Eu- 
skarian in one corner of the country, and a frag- 
ment of the secondary Celtic in another. In the 
British islands, only outlying pools of the second- 
ary linguistic wave remain in Wales, the Highlands, 
Ireland, and the Isle of Man. If this hypothesis is 
a sound one, it follows that the name of Celtic is not 
properly applicable to the Melanochroic or dark 
stock of Europe. They are merely, so to speak, 
secondary Celts. The primary and aboriginal Cel- 
tic-speaking people are Xanthochroi — the typical 
Gauls of the ancient writers, and the close allies by 
blood, customs, and language, of the Germans. 



VI. 



THE AEYA^ QUESTION AI^D PEE- 
HISTOEIC MAN. 

[1890.] 

The rapid increase of natural knowledge, which 
is the chief characteristic of our age, is effected in 
various ways. The main army of science moves to 
the conquest of new worlds slowly and surely, nor 
ever cedes an inch of the territory gained. But 
the advance is covered and facilitated by the cease- 
less activity of clouds of light troops provided with 
a weapon — always efficient, if not always an arm 
of precision — the scientific imagination. It is the 
business of these enfants perdus of science to make 
raids into the realm of ignorance wherever they 
see, or think they see, a chance; and cheerfully to 
accept defeat, or it may be annihilation, as the 
reward of error. Unfortunately, the public, which 
watches the progress of the campaign, too often 
mistakes a dashing incursion of the Uhlans for a 
forward movement of the main body; fondly im- 
agining that the strategic movement to the rear, 
which occasionally follows, indicates a battle lost 
273 



VI THE ARYAN QUESTION. 2Y3 

by science. And it must be confessed that the 
error is too often justified by the effects of the irre- 
pressible tendency which men of science share with 
all other sorts of men known to me, to be impatient 
of that most wholesome state of mind — suspended 
judgment; to assume the objective truth of specula- 
tions which, from the nature of the evidence in 
their favour, can have no claim to be more than 
working hypotheses. 

The history of the ^^ Aryan question " affords a 
striking illustration of these general remarks. 

About a century ago, Sir William Jones pointed 
out the close alliance of the chief European lan- 
guages with Sanskrit and its derivative dialects 
now spoken in India. Brilliant and laborious phi- 
lologists, in long succession, enlarged and strength- 
ened this position, until the truth that Sanskrit, 
Zend, Armenian, G^eek, Latin, Lithuanian, Slavo- 
nian, German, Celtic, and so on, stand to one an- 
other in the relation of descendants from a common 
stock, became firmly established, and thencefor- 
ward formed part of the permanent acquisitions of 
science. Moreover, the term " Aryan " is very 
generally, if not universally, accepted as a name 
for the group of languages thus allied. Hence, 
when one speaks of " Aryan languages," no hypo- 
thetical assumptions are involved. It is a matter of 
fact that such languages exist, that they present 
certain substantial and formal relations, and that 

convention sanctions the name applied to them. 

183 



274 THE ARYAN QUESTION". \i 

But the close connection of these widely differ- 
entiated languages remains altogether inexplicable, 
unless it is admitted that they are modifications of 
an original relatively undifferentiated tongue; just 
as the intimate affinities of the Eomance languages 
— French, Italian, Spanish, and the rest — ^would 
be incomprehensible if there were no Latin. The 
original or '^ primitive Aryan " tongue, thus postu- 
lated, unfortunately no longer exists. It is a hy- 
pothetical entity, which corresponds with the 
" primitive stock '' of generic and higher groups 
among plants and animals; and the acknowledg- 
ment of its former existence, and of the process of 
evolution which has brought about the present 
state of things philological, is forced upon us by 
deductive reasoning of similar cogency to that em- 
ployed about things biological. 

Thus, the former existence of a body of rela- 
tively uniform dialects, which may be called primi- 
tive Aryan, may be added to the stock of definite- 
ly acquired truths. But it is obvious that, in the 
absence of writing or of phonographs, the exist- 
ence of a language implies that of speakers. If 
there were primitive Aryan dialects, there must 
have been primitive Aryan people who used them; 
and these people must have resided somewhere or 
other on the earth's surface. Hence philology, 
without stepping beyond its legitimate bounds and 
keeping speculation within the limits of bare neces- 
sity, arrives, not only at the conceptions of Aryan 



VI THE ARYAN QUESTION. 275 

languages and of a primitive Aryan language; but 
of a primitive Aryan people and of a primitive 
Aryan home, or country occupied by them. 

But where was this home of the Aryans? 
When the labours of modern philologists began, 
Sanskrit was the most archaic of all the Aryan lan- 
guages known to them. It appeared to present the 
qualifications required in the parental or primitive 
Aryan. Brilliant Uhlans made a charge at this 
opening. The scientific imagination seated the 
primitive Aryans in the valley of the Ganges; and 
showed, as in a vision, the successive columns, 
guided by enterprising Brahmins, which set out 
thence to people the regions of the western world 
with Greeks and Celts and Germans. But the 
progress of philology itself sufficed to show that 
this Balaclava charge, however magnificent, was 
not profitable warfare. The internal evidence of 
the Yedas proved that their composers had not 
reached the Ganges. On the other hand, the com- 
parison of Zend with Sanskrit left no alternative 
open to the assumption that these languages were 
modifications of an original Indo-Iranian tongue, 
spoken by a people of whom the Aryans of India 
and those of Persia were offshoots, and who could 
therefore be hardly lodged elsewhere than on the 
frontiers of both Persia and India — that is to say, 
somewhere in the region which is at present known 
under the names of Turkestan, Afghanistan, and 
Kafiristan. Thus far, it can hardly be doubted 



276 THE ARYAN QUESTION. vi 

that we are well within the ground of which science 
has taken enduring possession. But the Uhlans 
were not content to remain within the lines of this 
surely-won position. For some reason, which is 
not quite clear to me, they thought fit to restrict 
the home of the primitive Aryans to a particular 
part of the region in question; to lodge them amidst 
the hleak heights of the long range of the Hindoo 
Xoosh and on the inhospitable plateau of Pamir. 
Prom their hives in these secluded valleys and 
wind-swept wastes, successive swarms of Celts and 
Greco-Latins, Teutons and Slavs, were thrown off 
to settle, after long wanderings, in distant Europe. 
The Hindoo-Koosh-Pamir theory, once enunciated, 
gradually hardened into a sort of dogma; and there 
have not been wanting theorists, who laid down 
the routes of the successive bands of emigrants 
with as much confidence as if they had access to the 
records of the office of a primitive Aryan Quarter- 
master-General. It is really singular to observe 
the deference which has been shown, and is yet 
sometimes shown, to a speculation which can, at 
best, claim to be regarded as nothing better than a 
somewhat risky working hypothesis. 

Forty yeais ago, the credit of the Hindoo- 
Koosh-Pamir theory had risen almost to that of an 
axiom. The first person to instil doubt of its value 
into my mind was the late Eobert Gordon Latham, 
a man of great learning and singular originality, 
whose attacks upon the Hindoo-Kooshite doctrine 



VI THE ARYAN QUESTION. 277 

could scarcely have failed as completely as they 
did, if his great powers had been bestowed upon 
making his books not only worthy of being read, 
but readable. The impression left upon my mind, 
at that time, by various conversations about the 
" Sarmatian hypothesis,^^ which my friend wished 
to substitute for the Hindoo-Koosh-Pamir specula- 
tion, was that the one and the other rested pretty 
much upon a like foundation of guess-work. That 
there was no sufficient reason for planting the 
primitive Aryans in the Hindoo Koosh, or in 
Pamir, seemed plain enough; but that there was 
little better ground, on the evidence then adduced, 
for settling them in the region at present occupied 
by Western Russia, or Podolia, appeared to me to 
be not less plain. The most I thought Latham 
proved was, that the Aryan people of Indo-Iranian 
speech were just as likely to have come from Eu- 
rope, as the Aryan people of Greek, or Teutonic, 
or Celtic speech from Asia. Of late years, Lath- 
am's views, so long neglected, or mentioned merely 
as an example of insular eccentricity, have been 
taken up and advocated with much ability in Ger- 
many as well as in this country — principally by 
philologists. Indeed, the glory of Hindoo-Koosh- 
Pamir seems altogether to have departed. Pro- 
fessor Max Miiller, to whom Aryan philology owes 
so much, will not say more now, than that he holds 
by the conviction that the seat of the primitive 
Aryans was '^ somewhere in Asia." Dr. Schrader 



278 THE ARYAN QUESTION. vi 

sums up in favour of European Eussia; while Herr 
Penka would have us transplant the home of the 
primitive Aryans from Pamir in the far east to the 
Scandinavian peninsula in the far west. 

I must refer those who desire to acquaint them- 
selves with the philological arguments on which 
these conclusions are based to the recently pub- 
lished works of Dr. Schrader and Canon Taylor; * 
and to Penka^s " Die Herkunf t der Arier/^ which, 
in spite of the strong spice of the Uhlan which 
runs through it, I have found extremely well worth 
study. I do not pretend to be able to look at the 
Aryan question under any but the biological aspect; 
to which I now turn. 

Any biologist who studies the history of the 
Aryan question, and, taking the philological facts 
on trust, regards it exclusively from the point of 
view of anthropology, will observe that, very early, 
the purely biological conception of " race " illegiti- 
mately mixed itself up with the ideas derived from 
pure philology. It is quite proper to speak of 
Aryan " people," because, as we have seen, the ex- 
istence of the language implies that of a people 
who speak it; it might be equally permissible to call 
Latin people all those who speak Eomance dia- 
lects. But, just as the application of the term 

* Schrader, PreMstoric Antiquities of the Aryan Peo- 
ples. Translated by F. B. Jevons, M.A., 1890. Taylor, 
The Origin of the Aryans, 1890. 



VI THE ARYAN QUESTION. 279 

Latin " race " to the divers people who speak Eo- 
mance languages, at the present day, is none the 
less absurd because it is common; so, it is quite 
possible, that it may be equally wrong to call the 
people who spoke the primitive Aryan dialects and 
inhabited the primitive home, the Aryan race. 
" Aryan " is properly a term of classification used 
in philology. " Eace " is the name of a sub-divi- 
sion of one of those groups of living things which 
are called " species " in the technical language of 
Zoology and Botany; and the term connotes the 
possession of characters distinct from those of the 
other members of the species, which have a strong 
tendency to appear in the progeny of all members 
of the races. Such race-characters may be either 
bodily or mental, though in practice, the latter, as 
less easy of observation and definition, can rarely be 
taken into account. Language is rooted half in 
the bodily and half in the mental nature of man. 
The vocal sounds which form the raw materials of 
language could not be produced without a peculiar 
conformation of the organs of speech; the enuncia- 
tion of duly accented syllables would be impossible 
without the nicest co-ordination of the action of 
the muscles which move these organs; and such 
co-ordination depends on the mechanism of certain 
portions of the nervous system. It is therefore 
conceivable that the structure of this highly com- 
plex speaking apparatus should determine a man's 
linguistic potentiality; that is to say, should en- 



280 THE ARYAN QUESTION. vi 

able him to use a language of one class and not of 
another. It is further conceivable that a particu- 
lar linguistic potentiality should be inherited and 
become as good a race mark as any other. As a 
matter of fact, it is not proven that, the linguistic 
potentialities of all men are the same. It is 
affirmed, for example, that, in the United States, 
the enunciation and the timbre of the voice of an 
American-born negro, however thoroughly he may 
have learned Enghsh, can be readily distinguished 
from that of a white man. But, even admitting 
that differences may obtain among the various races 
of men, to this extent, I do not think that there is 
any good ground for the supposition that an infant 
of any race would be unable to learn, and to use 
with ease, the language of any other race of men 
among whom it might be brought up. History 
abundantly proves the transmission of languages 
from some races to others; and there is no evidence, 
that I know of, to show that any race is incapable 
of substituting a foreign idiom for its native tongue. 
From these considerations it follows that com- 
munity of language is no proof of unity of race, is 
not even presumptive evidence of racial identity.* 

* Canon Taylor {Origin of the Aryans, p. 31) states 
that " Cuno .... was the first to insist on what is now 
looked on as an axiom in ethnology — that race is not co- 
extensive with language," in a work published in 1871. 
I may be permitted to quote a passage from a lecture 
delivered on the 9th of January, 1870, which brought me 
into a great deal of trouble. " Physical, mental, and 
moral peculiarities go with blood and not with language. 



VI THE ARYAN QUESTION. 281 

All that it does prove is that, at some time or other, 
free and prolonged intercourse has taken place be- 
tween the speakers of the same language. Phi- 
lology, therefore, while it may have a perfect right 
to postulate the existence of a primitive Aryan 
" people," has no business to substitute " race " for 
" people." The speakers of primitive Aryan may 
have been a mixture of two or more races, just as 
are the speakers of English and of French, at the 
present time. 

The older philological ethnologists felt the dif- 
ficulty which arose out of their identification of 
linguistic with racial affinity, but were not dis- 
mayed by it. Strong in the prestige of their great 
discovery of the unity of the Aryan tongues, they 
were quite prepared to make the philological and 
the biological categories fit, by the exercise of 
a little pressure on that about which they 
knew less. And their judgment was often uncon- 
sciously warped by strong monogenistic proclivities, 
which, at bottom, however respectable and philan- 
thropic their origin, had nothing to do with sci- 
ence. So the patent fact that men of Aryan speech 
presented widely diverse racial characters was ex- 
plained away by maintaining that the physical 

In the United States the negroes have spoken English 
for generations; but no one on that ground would call 
them Englishmen, or expect them to differ physically, 
mentally, or morally from other negroes." — Pall Mall 
Gazette, Jan. 10, 1870. But the " axiom in ethnology " 
had been implied, if not enunciated, before my time; for 
example, by Desmoulins in 1826 (See above p. 215.) 



282 THE ARYAN QUESTION. ti 

differentiation was post-Aryan; to put it broadly, 
that the Aryans in Hindoo-Koosh-Pamir were truly 
of one race; but that^ while one colony, subjected 
to the sweltering heat of the Gangetic plains, had 
fined down and darkened into the Bengalee, an- 
other had bleached and shot up, under the cool and 
misty skies of the north, into the semblance of 
Pomeranian Grenadiers; or of blue-eyed, fair- 
skinned, six-foot Scotch Highlanders. I do not 
know that any of the Uhlans who fought so vigor- 
ously under this flag are left now. I doubt if any 
one is prepared to say that he believes that the in- 
fluence of external conditions, alone, accounts for 
the wide physical differences between Englishmen 
and Bengalese. So far as India is concerned, the 
internal evidence of the old literature sufficiently 
proves that the Aryan invaders were " white " men. 
It is hardly to be doubted that they intermixed 
with the dark Dravidian aborigines; and that the 
high-caste Hindoos are what they are in virtue of 
the Aryan blood which they have inherited,* and 

* I am unable to discover good grounds for the severity 
of the criticism, in the name of " the anthropologists," 
with which Professor Max Miiller's, assertion that the 
same blood runs in the veins of English soldiers " as in 
the veins of the dark Bengalese," and that there is " a 
legitimate relationship between Hindoo, Greek, and Teu- 
ton," has been visited. So far as I know anything about 
anthropology, I should say that these statements may be 
correct literally, and probably are so substantially. I 
do not know of any good reason for the physical differ- 
ences between a high-caste Hindoo and a Dravidian, ex- 
cept the Aryan blood in the veins of the former; and the 



VI THE ARYAN QUESTION. 283 

of the selective influence of their surroundings 
operating on the mixture. 

The assumption that, as there must have been 
a primitive Aryan people, in the philological sense, 
so that people must have constituted a race in the 
biological sense, is pretty generally made in modern 
discussions of the Aryan problem. But whether 
the men of the primitive Aryan race were blonds 
or brunets, whether they had long or round heads, 
were tall or were short, are hotly debated questions, 
into the discussion of which considerations quite 
foreign to science are sometimes imported. The 
combination of swarthiness with stature above the 
average and a long skull, confer upon me the serene 
impartiality of a mongrel; and, having given this 
pledge of fair dealing, I proceed to state the case 
for the hypothesis I am inclined to adopt. In do- 
ing so, I am aware that I deliberately take the shil- 
ling of the recruiting-sergeant of the Light Bri- 
gade, and I warn all and sundry that such is the 
case. 

Looking at the discussions which have taken 
place from a purely anthropological point of view, 
the first point which has struck me is that the prob- 
lem is far more complicated and difficult than 
many of the disputants appear to imagine; and the 
second, that the data upon which we have to go 

strength of the infusion is probably quite as great in 
some Hindoos as in some English soldiers. 



284 THE AR.YAN QUESTION. vi 

are grievously insufficient in extent and in pre- 
cision. Our historical records cover such an in- 
finitesimally small extent of the past life of human- 
ity, that we obtain little help from them. Even so 
late as 1500 b. c, northern Eurasia lies in historical 
darkness, except for such glimmer of light as may 
be thrown here and there by the literatures of 
Egypt and of Babylonia. Yet, at that time, it is 
probable that Sanskrit, Zend, and Greek, to say 
nothing of other Aryan tongues, had long been dif- 
ferentiated from primitive Aryan. Even a thou- 
sand years later, little enough accurate information 
is to be had about the racial characters of the Euro- 
pean and Asiatic tribes known to the Greeks. We 
are thrown upon such resources as archaeology and 
human palaeontology have to offer, and notwith- 
standing the remarkable progress made of late 
years, they are still meagre. Nevertheless, it 
strikes me that, from the purely anthropological 
side, there is a good deal to be said in favour of 
the two propositions maintained by the new school 
of philologists; first, that the people who spoke 
" primitive Aryan " were a distinct and well- 
marked race of mankind; and, secondly, that the 
area of the distribution of this race, in primaeval 
times, lay in Europe, rather than in Asia. 

For the last two thousand years, at least, the 
southern half of Scandinavia and the opposite or 
southern shores of the Baltic have been occupied 
by a race of mankind possessed of very definite 



VI THE ARYAN QUESTION. 285 

characters. Typical specimens have tall and mas- 
sive frames, fair complexions, blue eyes, and yel- 
low or reddish hair — that is to say, they are pro- 
nounced blonds. Their skulls are long, in the 
sense that the breadth is usually less, often much 
less, than four-fifths of the length, and they are 
usually tolerably high. But in this last respect 
they vary. Men of this blond, long-headed race 
abound from eastern Prussia to northern Belgium; 
they are met with in northern France and are 
common in some parts of our own islands. The 
people of Teutonic speech, Goths, Saxons, Ale- 
manni, and Franks, who poured forth out of the 
regions bordering the North Sea and the Baltic, 
to the destruction of the Eoman Empire, were men 
of this race; and the accounts of the ancient his- 
torians of the incursions of the Gauls into Italy and 
Greece,* between the fifth and the second centuries 
B. c, leave little doubt that their hordes were 
largely, if not wholly, composed of similar men. 
The contents of numerous interments in southern 
Scandinavia prove that, as far back as archseology 
takes us into the so-called neolithic age, the great 
majority of the inhabitants had the same stature 
and cranial peculiarities as at present, though their 
bony fabric bears marks of somewhat greater rug- 
gedness and savagery. There is no evidence that 
the country was occupied by men before the advent 
of these tall, blond long-heads. But there is proof 
of the presence, along with the latter, of a small 



286 THE ARYAN QUESTION. ti 

percentage of people with broad skulls; skulls, that 
is, the breadth of which is more, often very much 
more, than four-fifths of the length. 

At the present day, in whatever direction we 
travel inland from the continental area occupied 
by the blond long-heads, whether south-west, into 
central France; south, through the Walloon prov- 
inces of Belgium into eastern France; into Swit- 
zerland, South Germany, and the Tyrol; or south- 
east, into Poland and Eussia; or north, into Fin- 
land and Lapland, broad-heads make their appear- 
ance, in force, among the long-heads. And, 
eventually, we find ourselves among people who 
are as regularly broad-headed as the Swedes and 
North Germans are long-headed. As a general 
rule, in France, Belgium, Switzerland, and South 
Germany, the increase in the proportion of broad 
skulls is accompanied by the appearance of a larger 
and larger proportion of men of brunet com- 
plexion and of a lower stature; until, in central 
France and thence eastwards, through the Ce- 
vennes and the Alps of Dauphiny, Savoy, and Pied- 
mont, to the western plains of North Italy, the 
tall hlond long-heads * practically disappear, and 

* I may plead the precedent of the good English words 
" block-head " and " thick-head " for " broad-head " and 
" long-head," but I cannot say that they are elegant. I 
might have employed the technical terms brachycephali 
and dolichocephali. But it cannot be said that they are 
much more graceful; and, moreover, they are sometimes 
employed in senses different from that which I have given 
in the definition of broad-heads and long-heads. The 



Ti THE AEYAN QUESTION. 287 

are replaced by short Irunet broad-heads. The 
ordinary Savoyard may be described in terms the 
converse of those which apply to the ordinary 
Swede. He is short, swarthy, dark-eyed, dark- 
haired, and his skull is very broad. Between the 
two extreme types, the one seated on the shores of 
the North Sea and the Baltic, and the other on 
those of the Mediterranean, there are all sorts of 
intermediate forms, in which breadth of skull may 
be found in tall and in short blond men, and in tall 
brunet men. 

There is much reason to believe that the brunet 
broad-heads, now met with in central France and 
in the west central European highlands, have in- 
habited the same region, not only throughout the 
historical period, but long before it commenced; 
and it is probable that their area of occupation was 
formerly more extensive. For, if we leave aside 
the comparatively late incursions of the Asiatic 
races, the centre of eruption of the invaders of the 
southern moiety of Europe has been situated in 
the north and west. In the case of the Teutonic 
inroads upon the Empire of Eome, it undoubtedly 
lay in the area now occupied by the blond long- 

cephalic index is a number which expresses the relation 
of the breadth to the length of a skull, taking the latter 
as 100. Therefore " broad-heads " have the cephalic in- 
dex above 80 and " long-heads " have it below 80. The 
physiological value of the difference is unknown; its 
morphological value depends upon the observed fact of the 
constancy of the occurrence of either long skulls or broad 
skulls among large bodies of mankind. 



288 THE ARYAN QUESTION. vi 

heads; and, in that of the antecedent Graiilish inva- 
sions, the physical characters ascribed to the lead- 
ing tribes point to the same conclusion. Whatever 
the causes which led to the breaking out of bounds 
of the blond long-heads, in mass, at particular 
epochs, the natural increase in numbers of a vigor- 
ous and fertile race must always have impelled 
them to press upon their neighbours, and thereby 
afford abundant occasions for intermixture. If, at 
any given pre-historic time, we suppose the lowlands 
verging on the Baltic and the North Sea to have 
been inhabited by pure blond long-heads, while the 
central highlands were occupied by pure brunet 
short-heads, the two would certainly meet and in- 
termix in course of time, in spite of the vast belt of 
dense forest which extended, almost uninterrupted- 
ly, from the Carpathians to the Ardennes; and the 
result would be such an irregular gradation of the 
one type into the other as we do, in fact, meet with. 
On the south-east, east, and north-east, 
throughout what was once the kingdom of Poland, 
and in Finland, the preponderance of broad-heads 
goes along with a wide prevalence of blond com- 
plexion and of good stature. In the extreme 
north, on the other hand, marked broad-headed- 
ness is combined with low stature, swarthiness, and 
more or less strongly Mongolian features, in the 
Lapps. And it is to be observed that this type pre- 
vails increasingly to the eastward, among the cen- 
tral Asiatic populations. 



VI THE ARYAN QUESTION. 289 

The population of the British Islands, at the 
present time, offers the two extremes of the tall 
blond and the short brunet types. The tall blond 
long-heads resemble those of the continent; but 
our short brunet race is long-headed. Brunet 
broad-heads, such as those met with in the central 
European highlands, do not exist among us. This 
absence of any considerable number of distinctly 
broad-headed people (say with the cephalic index 
above 81 or 82) in the modern population of the 
United Kingdom is the more remarkable, since the 
investigations of the late Dr. Thurnam, and others, 
proved the existence of a large proportion of tall 
broad-heads among the people interred in British 
tumuli of the neolithic age. It would seem that 
these broad-skulled immigrants have been ab- 
sorbed by an older long-skulled population; just as, 
in South Germany, the long-headed Alemanni have 
been absorbed by the older broad-heads. The 
short brunet long-heads are not peculiar to our 
islands. On the contrary, they abound in western 
France and in Spain, while they predominate in 
Sardinia, Corsica, and South Italy, and, it may be, 
occupied a much larger area in ancient times. 

Thus, in the region which has been under con- 
sideration, there are evidences of the existence of 
four races of men — (1) blond long-heads of tall 
stature, (2) brunet broad-heads of short stature, (3) 
mongoloid brunet broad-heads of short stature, (4) 
brunet long-heads of short stature. The regions 
183 



290 THE ARYAN QUESTION. vi 

in which these races appear with least admixture 
are — (1) ScandinaYia, North Germany, and parts 
of the British Islands; (2) central France, the 
central European highlands, and Piedmont; (3) 
Arctic and eastern Europe, central Asia; (4) the 
western parts of the British Islands and of France; 
Spain, South Italy. And the inhabitants of the 
localities which lie between these foci present the 
intermediate gradations, such as short blond 
long-heads, and tall brunet short-heads, and long- 
heads which might be expected to result from their 
intermixture. The evidence at present extant is 
consistent with the supposition that the blond 
long-heads, the brunet broad-heads, and the brunet 
long-heads have existed in Europe throughout his- 
toric times, and very far back into pre-historic 
times. There is no proof of any migration of 
Asiatics into Europe, west of the basin of the 
Dnieper, down to the time of Attila. On the con- 
trary, the first great movements of the European 
population of which there is any conclusive evi- 
dence is that series of Gaulish invasions of the east 
and south, which ultimately extended from North 
Italy as far as Galatia in Asia Minor. 

It is now time to consider the relations between 
the phenomena of racial distribution, as thus de- 
fined, and those of the distribution of languages. 
The blond long-heads of Europe speak, or have 
spoken, Lithuanian, Teutonic, or Celtic dialects. 



VI THE ARYAN QUESTION. 291 

and they are not known to have ever used any but 
these Aryan languages. A large proportion of the 
brunet broad-heads once spoke the Ligurian and 
the Ehsetic dialects, which are believed to have 
been non-Aryan. But, when the Eomans made 
acquaintance with Transalpine Gaul, the inhabit- 
ants of that country between the Garonne and the 
Seine (Caesar's Celtica) seem, at any rate for the 
most part, to have spoken Celtic dialects. The 
brunet long-heads of Spain and of France appear to 
have used a non-Aryan language, that Euskarian 
which still lives on the shores of the Bay of Biscay. 
In Britain there is no certain knowledge of their 
use of any but Celtic tongues. What they spoke in 
the Mediterranean islands and in South Italy does 
not appear. 

The blond broad-heads of Poland and West 
Eussia form part of a people who, when they first 
made their appearance in history, occupied the 
marshy plains imperfectly drained by the Vistula, 
on the west, the Duna, on the north, and the 
Dnieper and Bug, on the south. They were known 
to their neighbours as Wends, and among them- 
selves as Serbs and Slavs. The Slavonic languages 
spoken by these people are said to be most closely 
allied to that of the Lithuanians, who lay upon 
their northern border. The Slavs resemble the 
South Germans in the predominance of broad- 
heads among them, while stature and complexion 
vary from the, often tall, blonds who prevail in Po- 



292 THE ARYAN QUESTION. vi 

land and Great Eussia to the, often short, brunets 
common elsewhere. There is certainly nothing in 
the history of the Slav people to interfere with the 
supposition that, from very early times, they have 
been a mixed race. For their country lies between 
that of the tall, blond, long-heads on the north, 
that of the short brunet broad-heads of the Euro- 
pean type on the west, and that of the short brunet 
broad-heads of the Asiatic type on the east: and, 
throughout their history, they have either thrust 
themselves among their neighbours, or have been 
overrun and trampled down by them. Gauls and 
Goths have traversed their country, on their way to 
the east and south: Finno-tataric people, on their 
way to the west, have not only done the like, but 
have held them in subjection for centuries. On 
the other hand, there have been times when their 
western frontier advanced beyond the Elbe; in- 
deed, it is asserted that they have sent colonies 
to Holland and even as far as southern England. 
A large part of eastern Germany; Bohemia, 
Moravia, Hungary; the lower valley of the Danube 
and the Balkan peninsula, have been largely or 
completely Slavonised; and the Slavonic rule and 
language, which once had trouble to hold their own 
in West Eussia and Little Eussia, have now ex- 
tended their sway over all the Finno-tataric popu- 
lations of Great Eussia; while they are advanc- 
ing, among those of central Asia, up to the fron- 
tiers of India on the south and to the Pacific 



VI THE ARYAN QUESTION. 293 

on the extreme east. Tims it is hardly possible 
that fewer than three races should have contributed 
to the formation of the Slavonic people; namely, 
the blond long-heads, the European brunet broad- 
heads, and the Asiatic brunet broad-heads. And, 
in the absence of evidence to the contrary^ it is cer- 
tainly permissible to suppose that it is the first race 
which has furnished the blond complexion and the 
stature observable in so many, especially of the 
northern Slavs, and that the brunet complexion 
and the broad skulls must be attributed to the 
other two. But, if that supposition is permissible, 
then the Aryan form and substance of the Slavonic 
languages may also be fairly supposed to have pro- 
ceeded from the blond long-heads. They could 
not have come from the Asiatic brunet broad- 
heads, who all speak non- Aryan languages; and the 
presumption is against their coming from the 
brunet broad-heads of the central European high- 
lands, among whom an apparently non-Aryan 
language was largely spoken, even in historical 
times. 

In the same way, the tall blond tribes among 
the Fins may be accounted for as the product of 
admixture. The great majority of the Finno- 
tataric people are brunet broad-heads of the 
Asiatic type. But that the Fins proper have long 
been in contact with Aryans is evidenced by the 
many words borrowed from Aryan which their 
language contains. Hence there has been abun- 



294 THE ARYAN QUESTION. vi 

dant opportunity for the mixture of races; and 
for the transference to some of the Fins of more 
or fewer of the physical characters of the Aryans 
and vice versa. On any hypothesis, the frontier 
between Aryan and Finno-tataric people must have 
extended across west-central Asia for a very long 
period; and, at any point of this frontier, it has 
been possible that mixed races of blond Fins or of 
brunet Aryans should be formed. 

So much for the European people who now 
speak Celtic, or Teutonic, or Slavonian, or Lithu- 
anian tongues; or who are known to have spoken 
them, before the supersession of so many of the 
early native dialects by the Eomance modifications 
of the language of Eome. With respect to the 
original speakers of Greek and Latin, the unravel- 
ling of the tangled ethnology of the Balkan penin- 
sula and the ordering of the chaos of that of Italy 
are .enterprises upon which I do not propose to en- 
ter. In regard to the first, however, there are a 
few tolerably satisfactory data. The ancient 
Thracians were proverbially blue-eyed and fair- 
haired. Tall blonds were common among the an- 
cient Greeks, who were a long-headed people; and 
the Sphakiots of Crete, probably the purest repre- 
sentatives of the old Hellenes in existence, are tall 
and blond. But considering that Greek colonisa- 
tion was taking place on a great scale in the eighth 
century b. c, and that, centuries earlier and later, 
the restless Hellene had been fighting, trading. 



YJ THE ARYAN QUESTION. 295 

plundering and kidnapping, on both sides of the 
iEgean, and perhaps as far as the shores of Syria 
and of Egypt, it is probable that, even at the dawn 
of history, the maritime Greeks were a very mixed 
race. On the other hand, the Dorians may well 
have preserved the original type; and their famous 
migration may be the earliest known example of 
those movements of the Aryan race which were, in 
later times, to change the face of Europe. Analogy 
perhaps justifies a guess, that those ethnological 
shadows, the Pelasgi, may have been an earlier 
mixed population, like that of Western Gaul and 
of Britain before the Teutonic invasion. At any 
rate, the tall blond long-heads are so well repre- 
sented in the oldest history of the Balkan penin- 
sula, that they may be credited with the Aryan 
languages spoken there. And it may be that the 
tradition which peopled Phrygia with Thracians 
represents a real movement of the Aryan race into 
Asia Minor, such as that which in after years car- 
ried the Gauls thither. 

The difficulties in the way of a probable identi- 
fication of the people among whom the various 
dialects of the Latin group developed themselves, 
with any race traceable in Italy in historical 
times, are very great. In addition to the Italic 
^' aborigines '' northern Italy was peopled by 
Ligurian brunet broad-heads; with Gauls, prob- 
ably, to a large extent, blond long-heads; with 
Illyrians, about whom nothing is known. Besides 



296 THE ARYAN QUESTION. vi 

these, there were those perplexing people the 
Etruscans, who seem to have been, originally, 
hrunet long-heads. South Italy and Sicily present 
a contingent of " Sikels," Phoenicians and Greeks; 
while over all, in comparatively modern times, fol- 
lows a wash of Teutonic blood. The Latin dialects 
arose, no one knows how, among the tribes of Cen- 
tral Italy, encompassed on all sides by people of 
the most various physical characters, who were 
gradually absorbed into the eternally widening 
maw of Eome, and there, by dint of using the 
same speech, became the first example of that won- 
derful ethnological hotch-potch miscalled the Latin 
race. The only trustworthy guide here is archaeo- 
logical investigation. A great advance will have 
been made when the race characters of the pre- 
historic people of the terramare (who are identified 
by Helbig * with the primitive Umbrians) become 
fully known. 

I cannot learn that the ancient literatures of 
India and of Persia give any definite information 
about the complexion of the Indo-Iranians, beyond 
conveying the impression that they were what we 
vaguely call white men. But it is important to 
note that tall blond people make their appearance 
sporadically among the Tadjiks of Persia and of 

* Die Italiker in der Poehene, 1879. See for much 
valuable information respecting the races of the Balkan 
and Italic peninsulse, Zampa's essay " Vergleichende An- 
thropologische Ethnographie von Apulien," Zeitschrift 
fiir Ethnologie, xviii., 18S6. 



VI THE ARYAN QUESTION. 297 

Turkestan; that the Siah-posh and Galtehas of the 
mountainous barrier between Turkestan and India 
are such; and that the same characters obtain large- 
ly among the Kurds on the western frontier of 
Persia, at the present day. The Kurds and the 
Galtehas are generally broad-headed, the others 
are long-headed. These people and the ancient 
Alans thus form a series of stepping-stones between 
the blond Aryans of Europe and those of Asia, 
standing up amidst the flood of Finno-tataric peo- 
ple which has inundated the rest of the interval 
between the sources of the Dnieper and those of 
the Oxus. If only more was known about the 
Sarmatians and the Scythians of the oldest his- 
torians, it is not improbable, I think, that we should 
discover that, even in historical times, the area 
occupied by the blond long-heads of Aryan speech 
has been, at least temporarily, continuous from the 
shores of the North Sea to central Asia. 

Suppose it to be admitted, as a fair working 
hypothesis, that the blond long-heads once ex- 
tended without a break over this vast area, and that 
all the Aryan tongues have been developed out of 
their original speech, the question respecting the 
home of the race when the various families of 
Aryan speech were in the condition of inceptive 
dialects remains open. For all that, at first, ap- 
pears to the contrary, it may have been in the 
west, or in the east, or anywhere between the two. 



298 THE ARYAN QUESTION. vi 

In seeking for a solution of this obscure problem, 
it is an important preliminary to grasp the truth 
that the Aryan race must be much older than the 
primitive Aryan speech. It is not to be seriously 
imagined that the latter sprang suddenly into ex- 
istence, by the act of a jealous Deity, apparently 
unaware of the strength of man's native tendency 
towards confusion of speech. But if all the di- 
verse languages of men were not brought suddenly 
into existence, in order to frustrate the plans of 
the audaeious bricklayers of the plain of Shinar; 
if this professedly historical statement is only an- 
other " type," and primitive Aryan, like all other 
languages, was built up by a secular process of de- 
velopment, the blond long-heads, among whom it 
grew into shape, must for ages have been, philo- 
logically speaking, non-Aryans, or perhaps one 
should say " pro- Aryans." I suppose it may be 
safely assumed that Sanskrit and Zend and Greek 
were fully differentiated in the year 1500 b. c. If 
so, how much further back must the existence of 
the primitive Aryan, from which these proceeded, 
be dated? And how much further yet, that real 
juventus mundi (so far as man is concerned) when 
primitive Aryan was in course of formation? 
And how much further still, the differentiation of 
the nascent Aryan blond long-head race from the 
primitive stock of mankind? 

If any one maintains that the blond long-headed 
people, among whom, by the hypothesis, the 



VI THE ARYAN QUESTION. 299 

primitive Arj^an language was generated may have 
formed a separate race as far back as the pleisto- 
cene epoch, when the first unquestionable records 
of man make their appearance, I do not see that 
he goes beyond possibility — though, of course, that 
is a very different thing from proving his case. 
But, if the blond long-heads are thus ancient, the 
problem of their primitive seat puts on an alto- 
gether new aspect. Speculation must take into 
account climatal and geographical conditions 
widely different from those which obtain in 
northern Eurasia at the present day. During 
much of the vast length of the pleistocene period, 
it would seem that men could no more have lived 
either in Britain north of the Thames, or in Scan- 
dinavia, or in northern Germany, or in northern 
Russia, than they can live now in the interior of 
Greenland, seeing that the land was covered by a 
great ice sheet like that which at present shrouds 
the latter country. At that epoch, the blond long- 
heads cannot reasonably be supposed to have occu- 
pied the regions in which we meet with them in the 
oldest times of which history has kept a record. 

But even if we are content to assume a vastly 
less antiquity for the Aryan race; if we only make 
the assumption, for which there is considerable 
positive warranty, that it has existed in Europe 
ever since the end of the pleistocene period — when 
the fauna and flora assumed approximately their 
present condition and the state of things called 



300 THE ARYAN QUESTION. ti 

Eecent by geologists set in — we have to reckon 
with a distribution of land and water, not only 
very different from that which at present obtains 
in northern Eurasia, but of snch a nature that it 
can hardly fail to have exerted a great influence 
on the development' and the distribution of the 
races of mankind. (See page 250, note ].) 

At the present time, four great separate bodies 
of water, the Black Sea, the Caspian, the Sea of 
Aral, and Lake Balkash, occupy the southern end 
of the vast plains which extend from the Arctic 
Sea to the highlands of the Balkan peninsula, of 
Asia Minor, of Persia, of Afghanistan, and of the 
high plateaus of central Asia as far as the Altai. 
They lie for the most part between the parallels 
of 40° and 50° N. and are separated by wide 
stretches of barren and salt-laden wastes. The 
surface of Balkash is 514 feet, that of the Aral 
158 feet above the Mediterranean, that of the Cas- 
pian eighty-five feet below it. The Black Sea is in 
free communication with the Mediterranean by the 
Bosphorus and the Dardanelles; but the others, in 
historical times, have been, at most, temporarily 
connected with it and with one another, by rela- 
tively insignificant channels. This state of things, 
however, is comparatively modern. At no very dis- 
tant period, the land of Asia Minor was continu- 
ous with that of Europe, across the present site of 
the Bosphorus, forming a barrier several hundred 
feet high, which dammed up the waters of the 



VI THE ARYAN QUESTION. 301 

Black Sea. A vast extent of eastern Europe and 
of western central Asia thus became a huge reser- 
voir, the lowest part of the lip of which was prob- 
ably situated somewhat more than 200 feet above 
the sea level, along the present southern watershed 
of the Obi, which flows into the Arctic Ocean. 
Into this basin, the largest rivers of Europe, such 
as the Danube and the Volga, and what were then 
great rivers of Asia, the Oxus and Jaxartes, with 
all the intermediate affluents, poured their waters. 
In addition, it received the overflow of Lake Bal- 
kash, then much larger; and, probably, that of the 
inland sea of Mongolia. At that time, the level 
of the Sea of Aral stood at least 60 feet higher than 
it does at present.* Instead of the separate Black, 
Caspian, and Aral seas, there was one vast Ponto- 
Aralian Mediterranean, which must have been pro- 
longed into arms and fiords along the lower val- 
leys of the Danube, the Volga (in the course of 
which Caspian shells are now found as far as the 
Kuma), the Ural, and the other affluent rivers — 
while it seems to have sent its overflow, northward, 
through the present basin of the Obi. At the 
same time, there is reason to believe that the north- 
ern coast of Asia, which everywhere shows signs of 
recent slow upheaval, was situated far to the south 
of its present position. The consequences of this 

* This is proved by the old shore-marks on the hill 
of Kashkanatao in the midst of the delta of the Oxus. 
Some authorities put the ancient level very much higher — 
200 feet or more (Keane, Asia, p. 408). 



302 THE ARYAN QUESTION. vi 

state of things have an extremely important bear- 
ing on the question under discussion. In the first 
place, an insular climate must be substituted for 
the present extremely continental climate of west 
central Eurasia. That is an important fact in 
many ways. For example, the present eastern cli- 
matal limitations of the beech could not have ex- 
isted, and if primitive Aryan goes back thus far, 
the arguments based upon the occurrence of its 
name in some Aryan languages and not in others 
lose their force. In the second place, the European 
and the Asiatic moieties of the great Eurasiatic 
plains were cut off from one another by the 
Ponto-Aralian Mediterranean and its prolonga- 
tions. In the third place, direct access to Asia 
Minor, to the Caucasus, to the Persian highlands, 
and to Afghanistan, from the European moiety 
was completely barred; while the tribes of eastern 
central Asia were equally shut out from Persia 
and from India by huge mountain ranges and table 
lands. Thus, if the blond long-head race existed 
so far back as the epoch in which the Ponto-Aralian 
Mediterranean had its full extension, space for its 
development, under the most favourable condi- 
tions, and free from any serious intrusion of for- 
eign elements from Asia, was presented in north- 
ern and eastern Europe. 

When the slow erosion of the passage of the 
Dardanelles drained the Ponto-Aralian waters into 
the Mediterranean, they must have everywhere 



VI THE ARYAN QUESTION, 303 

fallen as near the level of the latter as the make of 
the country permitted, remaining, at first, con- 
nected by such straits as that of which the traces 
yet persist between the Black and the Caspian, 
the Caspian and the Aral Seas respectively. Then, 
the gradual elevation of the land of northern 
Siberia, bringing in its train a continental climate, 
with its dry air and intense summer heats, the 
loss by evaporation soon exceeded the greatly re- 
duced supply of water, and Balkash, Aral, and 
Caspian gradually shrank to their present dimen- 
sions. In the course of this process, the broad 
plains between the separated inland seas, as soon 
as they were laid bare, threw open easy routes to 
the Caucasus and to Turkestan, which might well 
be utilised by the blond long-heads moving east- 
ward through the plains, contemporaneously left 
dry, south and east of the Ural chain. The same 
process of desiccation, however, would render the 
route from east central Asia westward as easily 
practicable; and, in the end, the Aryan stock might 
easily be cut in two, as we now find it to be, by the 
movement of the Mongoloid brunet broad-heads to 
the west. 

Thus we arrive at what is practically Latham's 
Sarmatian hypothesis — if the term " Sarmatian " 
is stretched a little, so as to include the higher 
parts and a good deal of the northern slopes of 
Europe between the Ural and the German Ocean; 
an immense area of country, at least as large as 



304 THE ARYAN QUESTION. Ti 

that now included between the Black Sea, the At- 
lantic, the Baltic, and the Mediterranean. 

If we imagine the blond long-head race to have 
been spread over this area, while the primitive 
Aryan language was in course of formation, its 
north-western and its south-eastern tribes will have 
been 1,500, or more, miles apart. Thus, there will 
have been ample scope for linguistic differentia- 
tion; and, as adjacent tribes were probably influ- 
enced by the same causes, it is reasonable to sup- 
pose that, at any given region of the periphery the 
process of differentiation, whether brought about 
by internal or external agencies, will have been 
analogous. Hence, it is permissible to imagine 
that, even before primitive Aryan had attained 
its full development, the course of that develop- 
ment had become somewhat different in different 
localities; and, in this sense, it may be quite true 
that one uniform primitive Aryan language never 
existed. The nascent mode of speech may very 
early have got a twist, so to speak, towards Lithu- 
anian, Slavonian, Teutonic, or Celtic, in the north 
and west; towards Thracian and Greek, in the 
south-west; towards Armenian in the south'; to- 
wards Indo-Iranian in the south-east. With the 
centrifugal movements of the several fractions of 
the race, these tendencies of peripheral groups 
would naturally become more and more intensi- 
fied in proportion to their isolation. No doubt, in 
the centre and in other parts of the periphery of 



VI THE ARYAN QUESTION". 305 

the Aryan region, other dialectic groups made 
their appearance; but whatever development they 
may have attained, these have failed to maintain 
themselves in the battle with the Finno-tataric 
tribes, or with the stronger among their own kith 
and kin.* 

Thus I think that the most plausible hypo- 
thetical answers which can be given to the two 
questions which we put at starting are these. 
There was and is an Aryan race — that is to say, 
the characteristic modes of speech, termed Aryan, 
were developed among the blond long-heads alone, 
however much some of them may have been 
modified by the importation of non- Aryan ele- 
ments. As to the " home " of the Aryan race, it 
was in Europe, and lay chiefly east of the central 
highlands and west of the Ural. From this re- 
gion it spread west, along the coasts of the North 
Sea to our islands, where, probably, it met the 
brunet long-heads; to France, where it found both 
these and the brunet short-heads; to Switzerland 
and South Germany, where it impinged on the 
brunet short-heads; to Italy, where brunet short- 
heads seem to have abounded in the north and 
long-heads in the south; and to the Balkan penin- 
sula, about the earliest inhabitants of which we 
know next to nothing. There are two ways to 

* See the views of J. Schmidt (stated and discussed in 
Schrader and Jevons, pp. 63-67), with which those here set 
forth are substantially identical. 

184 



306 THE ARYAN QUESTION. ti 

Asia Minor, the one over the Bosphorns and the 
other through the passes of the Caucasus, and the 
Aryans may well have "utilised both. Finally, the 
south-eastern tribes probably spread themselves 
gradually over west Turkestan, and, after evolving 
the primitive Indo-Iranian dialect, eventually col- 
onised Persia and Hindostan, where their speech 
developed into its final forms. On this hypothesis, 
the notion that the Celts and the Teutons migrated 
from about Pamir and the Hindoo-Koosh is as far 
from the truth as the supposition that the Indo- 
Iranians migrated from Scandinavia. It supposes 
that the blond long-heads, in what may be called 
their nascent Aryan stage, that is before their dia- 
lects had taken on the full Aryan characteristics, 
were spread over a wide region which is, conven- 
tionally, European; but which, from the point of 
view of the physical geographer, is rather to be 
regarded as a continuation of Asia. Moreover, 
it is quite possible and even probable, that the 
blond long-heads may have arrived in Turkestan 
before their language had reached, or at any rate 
passed beyond, the stage of primitive Aryan; 
and that the whole process of differentiation 
into Indo-Iranian took place during the long 
ages of their residence in the basin of the 
Oxus. Thus, the question whether the seat of 
the primitive Aryans was in Europe, or in Asia, 
becomes very much a debate about geographical 
terminology. 



n THE ARYAN QUESTION. SOT- 

The foregoing arguments in favour of Latham's 
" Sarmatian hypothesis '' have been based upon 
data which lie within the ken of history or may 
be surely concluded by reasoning backwards from 
the present state of things. But, thanks to the 
investigations of the pre-historic archaeologists and 
anthropologists during the last half-century, a vast 
mass of positive evidence respecting the distribution 
and the condition of mankind in the long interval 
between the dawn of history and the commence- 
ment of the recent epoch has been brought to light. 

During this period, there is evidence that men 
existed in all those regions of Europe which have 
yet been properly examined; and such of their 
bony remains as have been discovered exhibit no 
less diversity of stature and cranial conformation 
than at present. There are tall and short men; 
long-skulled and broad-skulled men; and it is 
probably safe to conclude that the present contrast 
of blonds and brunets existed among them when 
they were in the flesh. Moreover it has become 
clear that, everywhere, the oldest of these people 
were in the so-called neolithic stage of civilisation. 
That is to say, they not merely used stone imple- 
ments which were chipped into shape, but they 
also employed tools and weapons brought to an 
edge by grinding. At first they know little or noth- 
ing of the use of metals; they possess domestic 
animals and cultivated plants and live in houses of 
simple construction. , 



308 THE ARYAN QUESTION. vi 

In some parts of Europe little advance seems 
to have been made, even down to historical times. 
But in Britain, France, Scandinavia, Germany, 
Western Eussia, Switzerland, Austria, the plain 
of the Po, very probably also in the Balkan penin- 
sula, culture gradually advanced until a relatively 
high degree of civilisation was attained. The in- 
itial impulse in this course of progress appears to 
have been given by the discovery that metal is a 
better material for tools and weapons than stone. 
In the early days of pre-historic archaeology. Mis- 
son showed that, in the interments of the middle 
age, bronze largely took the place of stone, and 
that, only in the latest, was iron substituted for 
bronze. Thus arose the generalisation of the oc- 
currence of a regular succession of stages of cul- 
ture, which were somewhat unfortunately denomi- 
nated the " ages " of stone, bronze, and iron. For 
a long time after this order of succession in the 
same locality (which, it was sometimes forgotten, 
has nothing to do with chronological contempo- 
raneity in different localities) was made out, the 
change from stone to bronze was ascribed to for- 
eign, and, of course. Eastern influences. There 
were the ubiquitous Phoenician traders and the 
immigrant Aryans from the Hindoo-Koosh, ready 
to hand. But further investigation has proved * 

* " Proved " is perhaps too strong a word. But the 
evidence set forth by Dr. Much {Die Kupferzeit in Eu- 
ropa, 1886) in favour of a copper stage of culture among 
the inhabitants of the pile-dwellings is very weighty. 



VI THE ARYAN QUESTION. 309 

for various parts of Europe and made it probable 
for others, that though the old order of succes- 
sion is correct it is incomplete, and that a copper 
stage must be interpolated between the neolithic 
and the bronze stages. Bronze is an artificial pro- 
duct the formation of which implies a knowledge 
of copper; and it is certain that copper was, at a 
very early period, smelted out of the native ores, 
by the people of central Europe who used it. 
When they learned that the hardness and tough- 
ness of their metal were immensely improved by 
alloying it with a small quantity of tin, they for- 
sook copper for bronze, and gradually attained a 
wonderful skill in bronze-work. Finally, some of 
the European people became acquainted with iron, 
and its superior qualities drove out bronze, as 
bronze had driven out stone, from use in the manu- 
facture of implements and weapons of the best 
class. But the process of substitution of copper 
and bronze for stone was gradual, and, for common 
purposes, stone remained in use long after the in- 
troduction of metals. 

The pile-dwellings of Switzerland have yielded 
an unbroken archaeological record of these changes. 
Those of eastern Switzerland ceased to exist soon 
after the appearance of metals, but in those of the 
Lakes of Neuchatel and Bienne the history is con- 
tinued through the stage of bronze to the begin- 
ning of that of iron. And in all this long series of 
remains, which lay bare the minutest details of 



310 THE ARYAN QUESTION. vi- 

the life of the pile-dwellers, from the neolithic 
to the perfected bronze stage, there is no indication 
of any disturbance such as must have been caused 
by foreign invasion; and such as was produced by 
intruders, shortly after the iron stage was reached. 
Undoubtedly the constructors of the pile-dwell- 
ings must have received foreign influences through 
the channel of trade, and may have received them 
by the slow immigration of other races. Their 
amber^ their jade, and their tin show that they had 
commercial intercourse with somewhat distant re- 
gions. The amber, however, takes us no further 
than the Baltic; and it is now known that jade is 
to be had within the boundaries of Europe, while 
tin lay no further ofE than north Italy. An 
argument in favour of oriental influence has been 
based upon the characters of certain of the culti- 
vated plants and domesticated animals. But even 
that argument does not necessarily take us be- 
yond the limits of south-eastern Europe; and it 
needs reconsideration in view of the changes of 
physical geography and of climate to which I have, 
drawn attention. 

In connection with this question there is an- 
other important series of facts to be taken into 
consideration. Wien, in the seventeenth century, 
the Eussians advanced beyond the Ural and began 
to occupy Siberia, they found that the majority of 
the natives used implements of stone and bone. 
Only a few possessed tools or weapons of iron. 



n THE ARYAK QUESTION. 311 

which had reached them by way of commerce; the 
Ostiaks and the Tartars of Tom, alone, extracted 
their iron from the oi'e. It was not until the in- 
vaders reached the Lena, in the far east, that they 
met with skilful smiths among the Jakuts,* who 
manufactured knives, axes, lances, battle-axes, and 
leather jerkins studded with iron; and among the 
Tunguses and Lamuts, who had learned from the 
Jakuts. 

But there is an older chapter of Siberian his- 
tory which was closed in the seventeenth century, 
as that of the people of the pile-dwellings of Swit- 
zerland had ended when the Romans entered Hel- 
vetia. Multitudes of sepulchral tumuli, termed 
like those of European Russia, "kurgans," are 
scattered over the north Asiatic plains, and are 
especially agglomerated about the upper waters of 
the Jenisei. Some are modern, while others, ex- 
tremely ancient, are attributed to a quasi-mythical 
people, the Tschudes. These Tschudish kurgans 
abound in copper and gold articles of use and lux- 
ury, but contain neither bronze nor iron. The 
Tschudes procured their copper and their gold 
from the metalliferous rocks of the Ural and the 
Altai; and their old shafts, adits, and rubbish heaps 

* Andree, Die Metalle hei den NaturvolTcern (p. 114). 
It is interesting to note tliat the Jakuts have always been 
pastoral nomads, formerly shepherds, now horse-breeders, 
and that they continue to work their iron in the primi- 
tive fashion; as the argument that metallurgic skill im- 
plies settled agricultural life not unfrequently makes its 
appearance. 



312 THE ARYAN QUESTION. vi^ 

led the Eussians to the rediscoyery of the forgotten 
stores of wealth. The race to which the Tschudes 
belonged and the age of the works which testify 
to their former existence, are alike unknown. But 
seeing that a rnmonr of them appears to have 
reached Herodotus, while, on the other hand, the 
pile-dwelling civilisation of Switzerland may per- 
haps come down as late as the fifth century b. c, 
the possibility that a knowledge of the technical 
value of copper may have travelled from Siberia 
westward must not be overlooked. If the idea of 
turning metals to account must needs be Asiatic, 
it may be north Asiatic just as well as south 
Asiatic. In the total absence of trustworthy 
chronological and anthropological data, speculation 
may run wild. 

The oldest civilisations for which we have an, 
even approximately, accurate chronology are those 
of the valleys of the ISTile and of the Euphrates. 
Here, culture seems to have attained a degree of per- 
fection, at least as high as that of the bronze stage, 
six thousand years ago. But before the inter- 
mediation of Etruscan, Phoenician^ and Greek trad- 
ers, there is no evidence that they exerted any 
serious influence upon Europe or northern Asia. 
As to the old civilisation of Mesopotamia, what is 
to be said until something definite is known about 
the racial characters of its originators, the Aeca- 
dians? As matters stand, they are just as likely 
to have been a group of the same race as the Egyp- 



VI THE ARYAN QUESTIOK. 313: 

tians, or the Dravidians, as anything else. And 
considering that their culture developed in the ex- 
treme south of the Euphrates valley, it is difficult 
to imagine that its influence could have spread to 
northern Eurasia except by the Phoenician (and 
Carian?) intermediation which was undoubtedly 
operative in comparatively late times. 

Are we then to bring down the discovery of 
the use of copper in Switzerland to, at earliest, 
1500 B. c, and to put it down to Phoenician hints? 
But why copper? At that time the Phoenicians 
must have been familiar with the use of bronze. 
And if, on the other hand, the northern Eurasiatics 
had got as far as copper, by the help of their own 
ingenuity, why deny them the capacity to make 
the further step to bronze? Carry back the bor- 
rowing system as far as we may, in the end we 
must needs come to some man or men from whom 
the novel idea started, and who after many trials 
and errors gave it practical shape. And there 
really is no ground in the nature of things for sup- 
posing that such men of practical genius may not 
have turned up, independently, in more races than 
one. 

The capacity of the population of Europe for 
independent progress while in the copper and early 
bronze stage — the " palaeo-metallic " stage, as it 
might be called — appears to me to be demonstrated 
in a remarkable manner by the remains of their 
architecture. From the crannog to the elaborate 



314: THE ARYAN QUESTION. vi 

pile-dwelling, and from the rudest enclosure to the 
complex fortification of the terramare, there is an 
advance which is obviously a native product. So 
with the sepulchral constructions; the stone cist, 
with or without a preservative, or memorial cairn, 
grows into the chambered graves lodged in tumuli; 
into such megalithic edifices as the dromic vaults 
of Maes How and New Grange; to culminate in the 
finished masonry of the tombs of Mycenae, con- 
structed on exactly the same plan. Can any one 
look at the varied series of forms which lie be- 
tween the primitive five or six flat stones fitted 
together into a mere box, and such a building as 
Maes How, and yet imagine that the latter is the 
result of foreign tuition? But the men who built 
Maes How, without metal tools, could certainly 
have built the so-called " treasure-house " of My- 
cen«, with them. 

If these old men of the sea, the heights of 
Hindoo-Koosh-Pamir and the plain of Shinar, had 
been less firmly seated upon the shoulders of 
anthropologists, I think they would long since 
have seen that it is at least possible that the early 
civilisation of Europe is of indigenous growth; 
and that, so far as the evidence at present accu- 
mulated goes, the neolithic culture may have at- 
tained its full development, copper may have 
gradually come into use, and bronze may have suc- 
ceeded copper, without foreign intervention. 

So far as I am aware, every raw material em- 



Ti THE ARYAN QUESTION. 315 

ployed in Europe up to the palseo-metallic stage, 
is to be found within the limits of Europe; and 
there is no proof that the old races of domesticated 
animals and plants could not have been developed 
within these limits. If any one chose to main- 
tain, that the use of bronze in Europe originated 
among the inhabitants of Etruria and radiated 
thence, along the already established lines of 
trafl&c to all parts of Europe, I do not see that his 
contention could be upset. It would be hard to 
prove either that the primitive Etruscans could 
not have discovered the way to manufacture bronze, 
or that they did not discover it and become a great 
mercantile people in consequence, before Phoeni- 
cian commerce had reached the remote shores of 
the Tyrrhene Sea. 

Can it be safely concluded that the palaeo- 
metallic culture which we have been considering 
was the appanage of any one of the western 
Eurasiatic races rather than another? Did it arise 
and develop among the brunet or the blond long- 
heads, or among the brunet short-heads? I do 
not think there are any means of answering these 
questions, positively, at present. Schrader has 
pointed out that the state of culture of the primi- 
tive Aryans, deduced from philological data, close- 
ly corresponds with that which obtained among 
the pile-dwellers in the neolithic stage. But the 
resemblance of the early stages of civilisation 



316 THE ARYAN QUESTION. vi 

among the most different and widely separated 
races of mankind, should warn us that archaeology 
is no more a sure guide in questions of race than 
philology. 

With respect to the osteological characters of 
the people of the Swiss pile-dwellings information 
is as yet scanty. So far as the present evidence 
goes, they appear to have comprised both broad- 
heads and long-heads, of moderate stature.* In 
France, England, and Germany, both long and 
broad skulls are found in tumuli belonging to the 
neolithic stage. In some parts of England the 
long skulls, and in others the broad skulls, accom- 
pany the higher stature. In the Scandinavian 
peninsula, nine-tenths of the neolithic people are 
decided long-heads: in Denmark, there is a much 
larger proportion of broad-heads. 

In view of all the facts known to me (which 
cannot be stated in greater detail in this place), I 
am disposed to think that the blond long-heads,, 
the brunet long-heads, and the brunet broad-heads 
have existed on the continent of Europe through- 

* Professor Virchow has guardedly expressed the opin- 
ion that the oldest inhabitants of the Swiss pile-dwell- 
ings were broad-heads, and that later on (commencing 
before the bronze stage) there was a gradual infusion of 
long-heads among them {ZeitscJirift fiir Ethnologie, xvii., 
1885). There is independent evidence of the existence 
of broad-heads in the Cevennes during the neolithic period, 
and I should be disposed to think that this opinion may 
well be correct; but the examination of the evidence on 
which it is, at present, based does not lead me to feel very 
confident about it. 



VI THE ARYAN QUESTION. 317 

out the Eecent period: that only the former two 
at first inhabited our islands; but that a mixed 
race of tall broad-heads, like some of the Black- 
foresters of the present day, so excellently de- 
scribed by Ecker, migrated from the continent and 
formed that tall contingent of the population 
which has been identified (rightly or wrongly) 
with the Belgffi by Thurnam and which seems to 
have subsequently lost itself among the predomi- 
nant brunet and blond long-heads. 

I do not think there is anything to warrant 
the conclusion that the palseo-metallic culture of 
Europe took its origin among the blond long-head 
(or supposed Atjsul) race; or that the people of 
the Swiss pile-dwellings belonged to that race. 
The long-heads among them may just as likely 
have been brunets. In north-eastern Italy there 
is clear evidence of the superposition of at least 
four stages of culture, in which that of the copper 
and bronze using terramare people comes second; 
a stage marked by Etruscan domination occupies 
the third place; and that is followed by the stage 
which appertains to the Gauls, with their long 
swords and other characteristic iron work. In 
western Switzerland, on the other hand, at La 
Tene, and elsewhere, similar relics show that the 
Gauls followed upon the latest population of the 
pile-dwellings among whom traces of Etruscan in- 
fluence (though not of dominion) are to be found. 
Helbig supposes the terraniare people to have been 



318 THE ARYAN QUESTION. vi 

Greco-Latin-speaking Pelasgi, and consequently 
Aryan. But we cannot suppose the people of the 
pile-dwellings of Switzerland to have been speakers 
of primitive Greco-Latin (if ever there was such 
a language). And if the Gauls were the first 
speakers of Celtic who got into Switzerland, what 
Aryan language can the people of the pile-dwell- 
ings have spoken? * 

As I have already mentioned, there is not the 
least doubt that man existed in north-western 
Europe during the Pleistocene or Quaternary 
epoch. It is not only certain that men were con- 
temporaries of the mammoth, the hairy rhinoceros, 
the reindeer, the cave bear, and other great 
carnivora, in England and in France, but a great 
deal has been ascertained about the modes of life 
of our predecessors. They were savage hunters, 
who took advantage of such natural shelters as 
overhanging rocks and caves, and perhaps built 
themselves rough wigwams; but who had no do- 
mestic animals and have left no sign that they 
cultivated plants. In many localities there is evi- 
dence that a very considerable interval — the so- 
called hiatus — intervened between the time when 
the Quaternary or palasolithic men occupied par- 

* See Dr. Munro's excellent work, The Lake Dwellings 
of Europe, for La Teiie. Readers of Professor Rhys' re- 
cent articles {Scottish Review, 1890) may suggest that the 
pile-dwelling people spoke the Gaedhelie form of Celtic, 
and the Gauls th^ Brythonic form. 



VI THE ARYAN QUESTION. 319 

ticular caves and river basins and the accumula- 
tion of the debris left by their neolithic successors. 
And, in spite of all the warnings against negative 
evidence afforded by the history of geology, some 
have very positively asserted that this means a 
complete break between the Quaternary and the 
Eecent populations — that the Quaternary popula- 
tion followed the retreating ice northwards and 
left behind them a desert which remained unpeo- 
pled for ages. Other high authorities, on the con- 
trary, have maintained that the races of men who 
now inhabit Europe may all be traced back to the 
Great Ice Age. When a conflict of opinion of 
this kind obtains among reasonable and instructed 
men, it is generally a safe conclusion that the evi- 
dence for neither view is worth much. Certainly 
that is the result of my own cogitations with re- 
gard to both the hiatus doctrine (in its extreme 
form) and its opposite — though I think the latter 
by much the more likely to turn out right. But I 
hesitate to adopt it on the evidence which has 
been obtained up to this time. 

IsTo doubt, human bones and skulls of various 
types have been discovered in close proximity to 
palaeolithic implements and to skeletons of quater- 
nary quadrupeds; no doubt, if the bones and skulls 
in question were not human, their contemporaneity 
would hardly have been questioned. But, since 
they are human, the demand for further evidence 
really need not be ascribed to mere conservative 



320 THE ARYAN QUESTION. vi 

•prejudice. Because the human biped differs from 
all other bipeds and quadrupeds, in the tendency 
to put his dead out of sight in various ways; com- 
monly by burial. It is a habit worthy of all respect 
in itself, but generative of subtle traps and griev- 
ous pitfalls for the unwary investigator of human 
palaeontology. For it may easily happen, that the 
bones of him that " died o' Wednesday/' may thus 
come to lie alongside the bones of animals that 
were extinct thousands of years before that Wed- 
nesday; and yet the interment may have been 
effected so many thousands of years ago that no 
outward sign betrays the difference in date. In all 
investigations of this kind, the most careful and 
critical study of the circumstances is needful if 
the results are to be accepted as perfectly trust- 
worthy. 

In the case of the remains found in a cave of the 
valley of the Neander, near Diisseldorf, half a 
century ago — the characters of which gave rise to 
a vast amount of discussion at that time and subse- 
quently—the circumstances of the discovery were 
but vaguely known. The skeleton was met with 
in a deposit, the loess, which is known to be of 
quaternary age; there was no evidence to show 
how it came there. Consequently, not only was 
its exact age justly and properly declared to be a 
matter of doubt; but those who, on scientific or 
other grounds, were inclined to minimise its im- 
portance could put forth plausible speculations 



VI THE ARYAN QUESTION. 321 

about its nature which do not look so well under 
the light thrown by a more advanced science of 
Anthropology. It could be and it was suggested 
that the Neanderthal skeleton was that of a 
strayed idiot; that the characters of the skull were 
the result of early synostosis or of late gout; and, 
in fact, any stick was good enough to beat the dog 
withal. 

As some writings of mine on the subject led to 
my occupation of a prominent position among the 
belaboured dogs of that day, I have taken a mild 
interest in watching the gradual rehabilitation of 
my old friend of the Neanderthal among normal 
men, which has been going on of late years. It 
has come to be generally admitted that his remark- 
able cranium is no more than a strongly-marked 
example of a type which occurs, not only among 
other prehistoric men, but is met with, sporadic- 
ally, among the moderns; and that, after all, I was 
not so wrong as I ought to have been, when I in- 
dicated such points of similarity among the skulls 
found in our river-beds and among the native races 
of Australia.* However, doubts still clung about 
the geological age of the various deposits in which 
skulls of the Neanderthal type were subsequently 
found; and it was not until the year 1886 that two 
highly-competent observers, Messrs. Fraipont and 
Lohest, the one an anatomist, the other a geolo- 
gist, furnished us with evidence such as will bear 

* See p. 202 of this volume. 
185 



322 THE ARYAN QUESTION. ti 

severe criticism. At the mouth of a caye in the 
commune of Spy, in the Belgian province of 
Namnr, Messrs. Fraipont and Lohest discovered 
two skeletons of the Neanderthal type; and the 
elaborate account of their investigations which 
they have published appears to me to leave little 
room for doubt that the men of Spy fabricated 
the paleolithic implements, and were the contem- 
poraries of the characteristic quaternary quadru- 
peds, found with them. The anatomical charac- 
ters of the skeletons bear out conclusions which are 
not flattering to the appearance of the owners. 
They were short of stature but powerfully built, 
with strong, curiously-curved thigh-bones, the 
lower ends of which are so fashioned that they 
must have walked with a bend at the knees. Their 
long depressed skulls had very strong brow ridges; 
their lower jaws, of brutal depth and solidity, 
sloped away from the teeth downwards and back- 
wards, in consequence of the absence of that espe- 
cially characteristic feature of the higher type of 
man, the chin prominence. Thus these skulls are 
not only eminently " Neanderthaloid," but they 
supply the proof that the parts wanting in the 
original specimen harmonised in lowness of type 
with the rest. 

After a very full discussion of the anatomical 
characters of these skulls, M. Fraipont says: 

To sum up, we consider ourselves to be in a position 
to say that, having regard merely to the anatomical struc- 



VI THE ARYAN QUESTION. 323 

ture of the man of Spy, he possessed a greater number of 
pithecoid characters than any other race of mankind.* 

And after enumerating these he continues: 

The other and much more numerous characters of the 
skull, of the trunk, and of the limbs seem to be all human. 
Between the man of Spy and an existing anthropoid ape 
there lies an abyss. 

Now that is pleasant reading for me, because, 
in 1863, I committed myself to the assertion that 
the Neanderthal skull was " the most pithecoid of 
human crania yet discovered," yet that " in no 
sense can the Neanderthal bones be regarded as 
the remains of a human being intermediate be- 
tween men and apes " f ^^^ " ^^^^ ^^^ fossil re- 
mains of Man hitherto discovered do not seem to 
me to take , us appreciably nearer to that lower 
pithecoid form, by the modification of which he 
has, probably, become what he is." J 

As the evidence stood seven and twenty years 
ago, in fact, it would have been imprudent to as- 
sume that the Neanderthal skull was anything but 
a case of sporadic reversion. But, in my anxiety 
not to overstate my case, I understated it. The 
Neanderthaloid race is " appreciably nearer," 
though the approximation is but slight. In the 
words of M. Fraipont: 

* Fraipont et Lohest. " La Race humaine de Neander- 
thal, ou de Canstatt, en Belgique," Arcliives de Biologie, 
1886. 

t See p. 204 supra. t Ibid, p. 208. 



324 THE ARYAN QUESTION. vi 

The distance which separates the man of Spy from the 
modern anthropoid ape is undoubtedly enormous; be- 
tween the man of Spy and the Dryopithecus it is a little 
less. But we must be permitted to point out that if the 
man of the later quaternary age is the stock whence exist- 
ing races have sprung, he has travelled a very great way. 

From the data now obtained, it is permissible to believe 
that we shall be able to pursue the ancestral type of men 
and the anthropoid apes still further, perhaps as far as 
the eocene and even beyond.* 

These conclusions hold good whatever the age 
of the men of Spy; but they possess a peculiar 
interest if we admit, as I think on the evidence 
must be admitted, that these human fossils are of 
pleistocene age. For, after all due limitations, 
they give us some, however dim, insight into the 
rate of evolution of the human species, and indi- 
cate that it has not taken place at a much faster 
or slower pace than that of other mammalia. And 
if that is so, we are warranted in the supposition 
that the genus Homo, if not the species which the 
courtesy or the irony of naturalists has dubbed 
sapiens^ was represented in pliocene, or even in 
miocene times. But I do not know by what 
osteological peculiarities it could be determined 
whether the pliocene, or miocene, man was suffi- 

*" Where, then, must we look for primaeval Man? 
Was the oldest Homo sapiens, pliocene or miocene, or yet 
more ancient? In still older strata do the fossilised bones 
of an Ape more anthropoid or a Man more pithecoid than 
any yet known await the researches of some unborn 
palaeontologist?" — P. 208 supra. 



VI THE ARYAN QUESTION. 325 

ciently sapient to speak or not; * and whether, or 
not, he answered to the definition " rational ani- 
mal" in any higher sense than a dog or an ape 
does. 

There is no reason to suppose that the genus 
Homo was confined to Europe in the pleistocene 
age; it is much more probable that this, like other 
mammalian genera of that period, was spread over 
a large extent of the surface of the globe. At 
that time, in fact, the climate of regions nearer the 
equator must have been far more favourable to the 
human species; and it is possible that, under such 
conditions, it may have attained a higher develop- 
ment than in the north. As to where the genus 
Homo originated, it is impossible to form even a 
probable guess. During the miocene epoch, one 
region of the present temperate zones would serve 
as well as another. The elder Agassiz long ago 
tried to prove that the well-marked areas of geo- 
graphical distribution of mammals have their spe- 
cial kinds of men; and, though this doctrine can- 
not be made good to the extent which Agassiz main- 
tained, yet the limitation of the Australian type 
to New Holland, f the approximate restriction of 

* I am perplexed by the importance attached by some 
to the presence or absence of the so-called " genial " eleva- 
tions. Does any one suppose that the existence of the 
genio-hyo-glossus muscle, which plays so large a part 
in the movements of the tongue, depends on that of these 
elevations ? 

[t Unless I am right in extending it to Hindostan and 
even further west. — 1894.] 



326 THE ARYAN QUESTION. vi 

the negro type to Ultra-Saharal Africa, and the 
peculiar character of the population of Central and 
South America, are facts which bear strongly in 
favour of the conclusion that the causes which 
have influenced the distribution of mammals in 
general have powerfully affected that of man. 

Let it be supposed that the human remains 
from the caves of the ^Neanderthal and of Spy 
represent the race, or one of the races, of men who 
inhabited Europe in the quaternary epoch, can 
any connection be traced between it and existing 
races? That is to say, do any of them exhibit 
characters approximating those of the Spy men 
or other examples of the Neanderthaloid race? 
Put in the latter form, I think that the question 
may be safely answered in the affirmative. Skulls 
do occasionally approach the Neanderthaloid type, 
among both the brunet and the blond long-head 
races. For the former, I pointed out the resem- 
blance, long ago, in some of the Irish river-bed 
skulls. For the latter, evidence of various kinds 
may be adduced; but I prefer to cite the author- 
ity of one of the most accomplished and cautious 
of living anthropologists. Professor Yirchow was 
led, by historical considerations, to think that the 
Teutonic type, if it still remained pure and un- 
defiled anywhere, should be discoverable among 
the Frisians, in their ancient island homes on the 
North German coast, remote from the great move- 
ments of nations. In their tall stature and blond 



VI THE ARYAN QUESTION. 327 

complexion the Frisians fulfilled expectation; but 
their skulls differed in some respects from those 
of the neighbouring blond long-heads. The de- 
pression, or flattening (accompanied by a slight 
increase in breadth), which occurs occasionally 
among the latter, is regular and characteristic 
among the Frisians; and, in other respects, the 
Frisian skull unmistakably approaches the Nean- 
derthal and Spy type.* The fact that this re- 
semblance exists is of none the less importance 
because the proper interpretation of it is not yet 
clear. It may be taken to be a pretty sure indi- 
cation of the physiological continuity of the blond 
long-heads with the pleistocene l!^eanderthaloid 
men. But this continuity may have been brought 
about in two ways. The blond long-heads may 
exhibit one of the lines of evolution of the men 
of the ]N"eanderthaloid type. Or, the Frisians may 
be the result of the admixture of the blond long- 
heads with IN'eanderthaloid men; whose remains 
have been found at Canstatt and at Gibraltar, as 
well as at Spy and in the valley of the Neander; 
and who, therefore, seem, at one time, to have oc- 
cupied a considerable area in Western Europe. 
The same alternatives present themselves when 

*Vircliow Beitrdge zur physischen Anthropologie der 
Deutsche^ {ANl der KoniglicJien Akademie der Wissen- 
schaften zu Berlin, 1876). See particularly p. 238 for the 
full recognition of the Neanderthaloid characters of 
Frisian skulls and of the ethnological significance of the 
similarity. 



328 THE ARYAN QUESTION. vi- 

Neanderthaloid characters appear in skulls of other 
races. If these characters belong to a stage in 
the development of the human species, antecedent 
to the differentiation of any of the existing races, 
we may expect to find them in the lowest of these 
races, all over the world, and in the early stages of 
all races. I have already referred to the remark- 
able similarity of the skulls of certain tribes of na- 
tive Australians to the Neanderthal skull; and I 
may add, that the wide differences in height be- 
tween the skulls of different tribes of Australians 
afford a parallel to the differences in altitude be- 
tween the skulls of the men of Spy and those of the 
grave rows of North Germany. Neanderthaloid 
features are to be met with, not only in ancient 
long skulls; those of the ancient broad-headed peo- 
ple entombed at Borreby in Denmark have been 
often noted. 

Eeckoned by centuries, the remoteness of the 
quaternary, or pleistocene, age from our own is 
immense, and it is difficult to form an adequate 
notion of its duration. Undoubtedly there is an 
abysmal difference .between the ISTeanderthaloia 
race and the comely living specimens of the blond 
long-heads with whom we are familiar. But the 
abyss of time between the period at which North 
Europe was first covered with ice, when savages 
pursued mammoths and scratched their portraits 
with sharp stones in central France, and the pres- 
ent day, ever widens as we learn more about the 



VI THE ARYAN QUESTION. 329 

events Avhich bridge it. And, if the differences be- 
tween the Neanderthaloid men and ourselves could 
be divided into as many parts as that time con- 
tains centuries, the progress from part to part 
would probably be almost imperceptible. 



(1) 



END OF VOL. VII. 



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